Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRUNEL UNIVERSITY BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.

THE CITY UNIVERSITY BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL

Miners (Scotland)

Mr. G. Campbell: asked the Minister of Power how many miners were employed in coal extraction in Scotland at the end of 1966; and how many are expected to be employed there at the end of 1967 and 1968.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. Reginald Free-son): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Gwynfor Evans) on 21st February this year.—[Vol. 741, c. 235.]

Mr. Campbell: Are the Government satisfied that enough alternative employment will be available for those men who are made redundant and that adequate arrangements have been made for retraining?

Mr. Freeson: As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate this matter is not primarily the responsibility of the Ministry of Power. We are, however, very much concerned about this, and other Government Departments are continuing to stimulate industrial development not only in Scotland but in other parts of the country which are affected.

Collieries (Minister's Visits)

Mr. Eadie: asked the Minister of Power what arrangements he makes to meet miners' trade union representatives when he officially visits collieries.

The Minister of Power (Mr. Richard Marsh): I always meet local union representatives when visiting pits.

Mr. Eadie: Is the Minister aware that on his last visit to Scotland some miners' leaders were not impressed by the offhand way in which he treated them?

Mr. Marsh: My hon. Friend has developed rather a habit of asking offensive supplementaries at Question Time. I can only say that on every visit to any pit that I have made, and on any visit to any pit which has been made by any Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power, deliberate arrangements have been made to meet local miners' leaders. Whatever the third-hand gossip my hon. Friend may be passing on, this has not been represented to me.

Mr. Eadie: On a point of order—

Mr. Shinwell: rose—

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Can the Minister make time available to discuss with Scottish mining trade unionists their offer to run a coal mine at Lochshirmoch, which the Coal Board intends to close down?

Mr. Marsh: I do not know about that offer, but I shall be willing to meet the S.T.U.C. or any other group of union officials at any time.

Mr. Shinwell: When my right hon. Friend meets some of the miners' leaders on the occasions when he visits collieries—and no doubt he does meet them—does he take note of the comments of the miners' leaders and of miners generally about Government policy—the number of closures taking place and redundancies? Is he aware that the mining community is almost in revolt against the Government?

Mr. Marsh: My right hon. Friend raises a very real point. I make every effort to meet union members and officials at every opportunity—and the opportunities are fairly frequent in this


job—precisely to keep in touch with the problems which they have, which I know are very real ones. I agree that there is a great deal of worry about the position. We do what we can to meet this worry.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Will my right hon. Friend take into account the fact that many miners' branch leaders treat the present problem with some emotion in trying to safeguard the future of their men, and if on occasions they feel a little dogmatic, will my right hon. Friend take that into account when answering their questions?

Mr. Marsh: I have met many miners' leaders and have dealt with them very closely at local and national levels, and I have received nothing but courtesy from them. I am in no doubt about the worries they have, and I have nothing but admiration for the constructive way in which they have met the problem.

Mr. Eadie: On a point of order. Further to the statement made by the Minister of Power on the question of my continual offensive remarks in supplementaries, would he care to tell the House about these remarks and, secondly—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is a point of argument, not a point of order.

Output Per Manshift

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Minister of Power what was the output per manshift, in hundredweights, in the coal mining industry for the years 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1966, respectively; and what percentage increase these figures represent over the previous year.

Mr. Freeson: With permission, I will circulate the detailed figures in the Official Report, but output per manshift increased from 28·03 cwt. in 1960 to 36·35 cwt. in 1966. The highest increase (7·8 per cent.) was in 1962 and the lowest (1·3 per cent) in 1966.

Mr. Wainwright: Is my hon. Friend aware that these figures would have been higher if the morale of the men inside the industry had not been allowed to deteriorate? Is he further aware that the present attitude of himself and his right hon. Friend gives the impression that they

are indifferent about the future welfare of the men in the industry?

Mr. Freeson: I am sorry if my hon. Friend is under the impression that either my right hon. Friend or myself are indifferent. It is not the occasion, in answering Questions, to go into detail about the kind of discussions that we have had, both in London and in visiting various areas of the country, with the people directly involved. We are very concerned about the present state of the coal industry and its future prospects. So far as any lowering of morale is concerned, this again is a factor of which we are very much aware. There is a real possibility of this if we do not control what is happening in the industry.

Mr. Ness Edwards: Is my hon. Friend aware that the hostility of many of these Questions he has had stems from the fact that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction and apprehension in the coalfields? Promises have been given and those promises have not yet been carried out. Is he aware that until that is done much more hostility will be shown in this House on this extremely difficult problem?

Mr. Freeson: I certainly understand the fears and apprehensions with regard to the future of the industry among these men. I would add that during the visits I have made to different parts of the country which are affected, or are likely to be affected, the kind of hostility to which my right hon. Friend has referred has not been shown to me—[Interruption.]—and I do not believe that it has been shown to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Palmer, No. 12.

Mr. Ness Edwards: On a point of order. I understand that an objection was made from the Front Bench about myself. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to say in an outspoken way what he has said.

Mr. Freeson: I am sorry for any misunderstanding. What I said was that during my visits to different parts of the country, I had not experienced any hostility directed against myself nor has there been such hostility shown to my right hon. Friend.

The following are the figures:





cwts.

per cent.


1960
…
…
28·03
increased
4·1


1961
…
…
28·94
increased
3·3


1962
…
…
31·20
increased
7·8


1963
…
…
32·96
increased
5·6


1964
…
…
34·35
increased
4·2


1965
…
…
35·90
increased
4·5


1966
…
…
36·35
increased
1·3

Open-Cast Mining (Blasting Operations)

Mr. Spriggs: asked the Minister of Power how much nuisance and damage to property is caused by open-cast coal contractors when using explosives; and what representations he has received calling for an end to this method of coal extraction.

Mr. Freeson: The conditions my right hon. Friend imposes when authorising an open-cast site include restrictions on blasting. No recent representations about nuisance or damage from this cause have been received, but if the hon. Member has any particular site in mind I will ask the Chairman of the National Coal Board to look into the matter and write to him.

American Coal

Sir J. Gilmour: asked the Minister of Power what estimate he has now made of the landed cost of American coal in this country as a possible alternative to Middle East fuel oil; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Marsh: None, Sir. We have ample supplies of British coal available.

Sir J. Gilmour: Does the Minister not agree that the importation of American coal would help the industry in the long run by stimulating coal utilisation?

Mr. Marsh: No, Sir. I think that it would be a mistake to change the policy in this field at the moment.

Mr. William Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the miners in Fife, and particularly in East Fife, will not welcome the hon. Member's suggestion?

Mr. Marsh: My own researches confirm my hon. Friend's view.

Sir J. Eden: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how the landed cost of this coal compares with the cost of a similar grade of coal mined in this coun-

try? is there any demand for this coal from the steel industry?

Mr. Marsh: I could not give the figures off hand. United States coal is landed in Antwerp at around 98s. a ton, which is roughly the average British pithead price.

Pit Closures (Grants)

Mr. Concannon: asked the Minister of Power how much of the £30 million grants in connection with pit closures was paid in the year 1966–67; and what is the estimated payment for the year 1967–68.

Mr. McGuire: asked the Minister of Power how much of the £30 million allocated by the Coal Industry Act, 1965, for the purpose of assisting the National Coal Board to meet the social costs of the contraction of the coal industry has been spent; and what proportion, expressed as a percentage, this represents of the total amount spent by the National Coal Board on social costs since the passing of the Act; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Freeson: The sum of £1·3 million was paid to the Board in 1966–67. This represented 20 per cent. of the Board's total expenditure of £6·4 million in that year. The estimated payment for 1967–68 is £3 million, which would be the proportion payable under existing statutory provisions towards expenditure by the Board of £9·8 million.

Mr. Concannon: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Coal Industry Act, 1965, is not working as intended, and could it be looked at again with a view to cutting the strings attached to the £30 million?

Mr. Freeson: I can assure my hon. Friend that the Act is working as intended. My hon. Friend's second point refers to a matter which will be considered as part of our general fuel policy review. It is being considered now.

Mr. McGuire: While I am pleased to hear that the fuel policy is to be reviewed, may I ask my hon. Friend whether he agrees that there is need now to speed this up and not have a five-year period? Could we not get rid of it much more quickly?

Mr. Freeson: My hon. Friend has a fair point there. This is one of the aspects that we are looking at.

Mr. Varley: Would my hon. Friend agree that, in the context of achieving a coal industry of the right size, the question of adequately meeting social costs and social reconstruction in the mining areas is of supreme importance? Will he bring forward a plan which recognises this fact and treat the miners generously?

Mr. Freeson: I would only say, first of all, that as has been put in a number of Questions and Answers I agree that this is one of the key problems that face us in this field. As to my hon. Friend's second point, my right hon. Friend will be consulting his colleagues on this matter. There will be inter-departmental discussions. We are very much concerned to produce the right answers.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF POWER

Nuclear Power Stations

Mr. David Griffiths: asked the Minister of Power how much coal is being displaced from power station use by the present nuclear power stations, and at what extra cost to the consumer of electricity.

Mr. Freeson: Nuclear power accounted for just under 8 million tons of coal equivalent in 1966. I cannot estimate how much of this would have been replaced by coal if the nuclear power stations had not been built. In 1969, when the first nuclear power programme is completed, the additional annual cost may be about 2 per cent. of total revenue from electricity sales.

Mr. Griffiths: Is my hon. Friend aware that many experts—and I mean experts—are dubious about the costing of nuclear power stations? In view of this, will he reconsider whether to build any more nuclear power stations until the costings are revealed, and particularly until the Select Committee on Science and Technology has reported?

Mr. Freeson: The expert knowledge available in the Department does not

lead to the conclusion reflected in my hon. Friend's question.

Mr. Griffiths: It should do.

Mr. Freeson: It should be borne in mind that no matter what the position may be with future nuclear power stations, no effect of any developments will be felt in the coal industry between now and 1970.

Mr. Webster: Would not the cost of nuclear power be more realistic if power stations were amortised at 30 years, as is the normal practice with electric power stations?

Mr. Freeson: This might make the nuclear power stations even more competitive.

Mr. Woof: asked the Minister of Power whether he will, before taking a decision to allow the Central Electricity Generating Board to build a nuclear power station at Seaton Carew, require the Board to submit alternative proposals for a coal-fired station so that the estimated operating costs for the two fuels can he compared accurately.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Power if the proposed power station at Seaton Carew will be based on coal.

Mr. Urwin: asked the Minister of Power what estimate has been submitted to him by the Central Electricity Generating Board of the cost competitiveness of coal against nuclear power as the proposed generating fuel for the new power station at Seaton Carew; and what would be the comparative cost of the two fuels in price per therm.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Power what estimates have been made of the effect on neighbouring coalfields of the proposal to build a nuclear power station at Seaton Carew.

Mr. Freeson: My right hon. Friend has not yet reached a decision on the C.E.G.B.'s application to build a nuclear power station at Seaton Carew. Before doing so, he will take account of the prospects of all the alternative fuels for electricity generation in the context of fuel policy as a whole.

Mr. Woof: Is my hon. Friend aware that the National Coal Board has gone


into great detail on the costs of such a project? In view of the serious unemployment expected from the forthcoming run-down in certain parts of the North-East coalfield, does not he agree that the Coal Board should be given the opportunity to present its case, even if merely for the sake of national economic advantage?

Mr. Freeson: The Coal Board is presenting its case, but I repeat, on the general point raised by my hon. Friend about unemployment—and I am not saying this to belittle the fears and concern expressed in a number of quarters in mining communities—that whatever decisions are made by my right hon. Friend with regard to the future nuclear power station programme, they cannot affect the position in the coal industry for the next four or five years.

Mr. Shinwell: Before a decision is reached, will my hon. Friend's right hon. Friend take account of the social consequences which are likely to ensue? Secondly, is he aware of the effect of the construction of a nuclear power station at Seaton Carew on the pits for which I am politically responsible in South-East Durham?

Mr. Freeson: On the last point, I cannot go much further than what I have just said in answer to the previous supplementary question concerning the effects of any programme now embarked upon for the mid and late 1970s in relation to the run-down and contraction of the coal industry between now and 1970. What I can say about any nuclear power station is that during the period in which construction is undertaken there will be an injection of many thousands of job opportunities into not merely this area but all the areas concerned. On my hon. Friend's first point, I stress that we are very much aware of the social consequences for the coal industry and mining areas of the present situation and are giving a great deal of attention to it.

Mr. Urwin: Is my hon. Friend aware that, as far as the proposed station is concerned, there are six large modern collieries in close proximity—three of them in my constituencey—which could literally pour in coal at a cost per therm estimated by the N.C.B. to be highly competitive? In view of the fact that the Dungeness costing is highly suspect, is

there not a case for treating this proposition on a basis of conventional firing?

Mr. Freeson: I cannot give an answer different from that which I gave in the first instance. All possible alternatives will be considered by my right hon. Friend in coming to a decision on the matter. Whatever decision is come to it will affect more than the area in which the siting takes place; it will affect the generation of power nationally and not merely in the area concerned.

Mr. Varley: Is it not a fact that the present technological uncertainties and enormous investment involved in the development of the A.G.R. system will prove to be out of all proportion to the technical knowledge required to move to the fast-breeder reactor type of station?

Mr. Freeson: This is not the opinion of the electricity industry, and we must bear in mind that any decision it takes is based on the desire to get the cheapest possible and most effective kind of fuel for generating power in this country.

Mr. Woof: asked the Minister of Power whether he will refuse to authorise the building of an advanced gas-cooled reactor nuclear power station at Seaton Carew until the first of the advanced gas-cooled reactors has been operating for some time and he has further evidence as to the running costs.

Mr. Freeson: No, Sir. Technological progress would be intolerably slow if we waited for operating results of one station before starting the next.

Mr. Woof: Is my hon. Friend aware that the country is being asked to invest huge sums of money in a process that will take at least three years to prove? Does not he, therefore, agree that the project should be postponed until much more precise information is available on the costs?

Mr. Freeson: In coming to its decision—as I indicated earlier—my right hon. Friend will take account of all available information in this field.

Mr. Alison: What account has been taken of the published cost results of the boiling water reactor established in the United States of America?

Mr. Freeson: This is being considered.

Mr. Urwin: asked the Minister of Power what representations he has received from the National Coal Board regarding the proposal to provide a nuclear power station at Seaton Carew.

Mr. Freeson: My right hon. Friend received a letter on this subject from the Chairman of the Board yesterday afternoon.

Mr. Urwin: I am quite sure that there must have been some very important things in this letter. Has the Coal Board made any representations to my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend on the desirability of utilising the full resources of coal produced in the industry, bearing in mind that in the north of England at the end of this year there will be 2 million tons stockpiled and that this would in itself be sufficient to fire a power station for one year as opposed to the proposal for nuclear power?

Mr. Freeson: While it is not for me to discuss the contents of the letter this afternoon, the answer to my hon. Friend's supplementary question involves the contents of the letter. When representations have been received, they will be considered by my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Shinwell: As there appears to be a conflict on this important issue as between the National Coal Board and the Ministry of Power, how are we to judge who is right? Does not my hon. Friend think it desirable that the representations made to the Ministry should be made available, not only to hon. Members who are concerned in the matter but to the mineworkers?

Mr. Freeson: I am not unaware that there has been a good deal of discussion internally in the industry, and publicly. All I can say on the particular question is that it will be considered by my right hon. Friend in the same way as any other application.

North Sea Gas

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: asked the Minister of Power if he will make a statement on his discussion with the oil companies on the price for North Sea gas.

Mr. Peyton: asked the Minister of Power when he expects to make a statement on the price of North Sea gas.

Mr. Mikardo: asked the Minister of Power if he will make a further statement on the result of discusions with the North Sea producers on a reasonable price for North Sea gas.

Mr. Marsh: I cannot at present add to the statement I made in the House on 7th June.—[Vol. 747, c. 980–2.]

Mr. Taylor: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the oil crisis in the Middle East has given the matter more urgency? When does he expect a decision to be arrived at, and when will the consumer get some benefit?

Mr. Marsh: The current negotiations are having no effect on the development of the fields, and there is no evidence that bringing gas ashore is being held up. The negotiations will be concluded as soon as everybody is convinced that the price being offered is a fair one.

Mr. Atkinson: Would my right hon. Friend agree that the price which he ultimately endorses should not yield more than 15 per cent. to the private oil companies who are investing in this development?

Mr. Marsh: I think that it is much more complicated than that. A number of factors are involved. I cannot look at this exercise as if it were an aircraft contract, or something of that sort. This is a question of exploration. I give my hon. Friend an assurance that we are very concerned to ensure that public shareholders are as much protected as private ones.

Mr. Eadie: asked the Minister of Power what is the estimated total costs of conversions and new pipelines connected with the utilisation of North Sea gas.

Mr. Freeson: About £400 million for conversion, and about £200 million for the Gas Council transmission system up to 1970. There will also be expenditure on area boards' pipeline systems, but these will be required for distribution of town gas as well as natural gas until full conversion has taken place.

Mr. Eadie: Is my hon. Friend aware that the figure of £2,000 million has been quoted for conversion and pipelines?


Does not he agree that this is a substantial capital sum and that the prospects of cheap gas for the consumer must be seriously questioned?

Mr. Freeson: I do not know that the figure of £2,000 million is in any way a contradiction of the information that I have given. It may be that whoever has quoted this figure is concerning himself or herself with a longer period of development, for the pipeline transmission system. I was referring to developments up to 1970. Developments will continue well beyond that period.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: Can the Minister say how much of this cost will be borne from Exchequer funds, and whether it will be necessary to go to the open market?

Mr. Freeson: As the hon. Member knows, as a general practice it is not the policy of the nationalised industries to obtain their funds on the open market.

Mr. Webster: asked the Minister of Power what steps he will now take to accelerate supplies of natural gas from the North Sea to the Gas Council; and how much will now be supplied in the current year.

Mr. Marsh: The rate at which this gas can be made available depends on the construction of pipelines and other works, which is being pressed forward with all speed. Deliveries to the Gas Council in 1967 should be well over 100 million therms.

Mr. Webster: When will the price be increased?

Mr. Marsh: As soon as he settlement has been reached.

Mr. Atkinson: In view of the relationship between the price of supply and the fact that the Minister has said that the yield from the capital involved will be more than 15 per cent., will he tell the House that he is not prepared to endorse agreements which will give the investors more than 30 per cent. return on their capital?

Mr. Marsh: I do not think that I should be placed in a position in which one side to the negotiations is negotiating in public while the other side can negotiate in private. I have given no information about the minimum return. That

is being negotiated between the Gas Council and the companies.

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Power if he will include in the licences which he gives to persons and companies to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea a direction that the relevant oil refinery and conduit pipes be built and laid in the part of Great Britain nearest to the source of oil and gas so found.

Mr. Freeson: No, Sir. Decisions on these matters must take account of the circumstances of the individual case, and are properly the responsibility of the licensee, subject to normal planning controls.

Mr. Hughes: Does not the answer to this Question and the answer to the previous Question show that the drilling for oil in the North Sea has got into a very disorganised state? Is my hon. Friend aware that some of the repairs to pipes and drills are being sent to Europe instead of to British workshops? Will the Minister rectify that?

Mr. Freeson: I am not aware that there is any disorganisation. On the second point, I have answered a previous Question about this from my hon. and learned Friend, and the answer today must be the same—that the repairs are done at the most convenient place.

Scottish Gas Board (Revenue per Therm)

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: asked the Minister of Power what was the average revenue per therm received by the Scottish Gas Board during the latest annual period for which figures are available; and what was the average revenue per therm received by the gas boards in England during the same period.

Mr. Freeson: I cannot yet add to the answer I gave to the hon. Member on 23rd January this year.—[Vol. 739, c. 195.]

Mr. Taylor: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that his Answer on 23rd January was in respect of information relating to 1965? Why cannot we have more up-to-date information available, particularly when the Answer he gave showed that people in Scotland were paying about 18 per cent. more for gas than people in the rest of the country?

Mr. Freeson: For figures for 1966–67 I can only ask the hon. Gentleman to await the publication of the Board's annual report for that year. This will, as usual, be in the autumn.

Electricity Industry (Finance)

Mr. Ridley: asked the Minister of Power what proportion of the 10 per cent. increase in revenue sought by the electricity supply industry was due to the provision of capacity 9 per cent. in excess of 1965–66 for this year, in accordance with the National Plan, instead of the 2·6 per cent. by which the demand actually rose.

Mr. Marsh: As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) on 6th June, it is not possible to quantify all the factors involved.—[Vol. 747, c. 178.]

Mr. Ridley: In a case like this where faulty national planning has resulted in a very heavy increase of costs, is the Minister prepared to suggest that the Electricity Board should be compensated for this mistake? Can he say who is responsible? Is it the responsibility of the Electricity Council?

Mr. Marsh: There are a number of factors involved. The increased costs since the last price increases more than outweigh the amount which could be raised by the increased charges. On overcapacity as a result of planning estimates, any over-capacity which arose in the next two or three years will result primarily not from the National Plan but from the 4 per cent. growth assumption of the National Economic Development Council.

Mr. Palmer: asked the Minister of Power what representations he has received from the Electricity Council proposing borrowing on the market to meet interest charges on temporarily unremunerative capital investment, in order to avoid or modify the proposed 10 per cent. average increase in electricity tariffs; and what answer he has given.

Mr. Marsh: When tariff increases for electricity were under consideration, the Electricity Council proposed, as one of a number of possibilities, that the industry might be permitted to raise funds on the market without Government guarantee. It was not considered appropriate at that time to pursue this suggestion.

Mr. Palmer: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that an increase of 2s. in the £ in electricity charges is bound to have the most serious repercussions throughout the whole of the country? Should not proposals to spread the cost over longer periods have received much more serious consideration from the Government?

Mr. Marsh: There has been a lot of consideration on the point which the hon. Gentleman makes. It is a very real possibility, borrowing on the open market, as he knows. [Interruption.] Very well, there are a lot of difficulties and objections to it. I do not think that anyone would believe that this particular device would be sufficient to raise funds of the order that we are talking about here, of £100 million.

Mr. Ridsdale: The Minister has just said that there is a very real possibiilty of borrowing on the open market. Will he stop being—[Interruption.] Yes, he said it. Would he stop being so doctrinaire about this and realise that the price of electricity over a long period will be much cheaper? Will he help the consumer by letting the nationalised industry borrow on the open market?

Mr. Marsh: I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman has got the impression that I said that there was a very real possibility of borrowing on the open market. He must have misunderstood me, or I must have misunderstood myself. This particular device has been discussed many times. It is a very and real interesting point, but I do not think that anyone believes that with this sort of borrowing in this industry one could raise money on this scale.

Mr. Ridsdale: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. Palmer: asked the Miniser of Power what representations he has received from the Electricity Council asking that the expected rate of return on net capital assets should be equalised in respect of the gas and electricity industries; and what answer he has given.

Mr. Rowland: asked the Minister of Power why the electricity industry is


required to show a higher return on capital employed than the gas industry; and if he will take steps to reduce it.

Mr. Marsh: The Electricity Council has from time to time raised the differing levels of the two industries' financial objectives. The Government's policy of progressive alignment of these objectives was announced in the 1965 White Paper on Fuel Policy (Cmnd. 2798). I am currently discussing with the Gas Council the objective towards which the gas industry should work in 1968–69 and I hope to make a statement on this before very long.

Mr. Palmer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this matter has been under discussion for a very long time and that until these rates of return are based on a rational basis one cannot talk about a competitive fuel policy?

Mr. Marsh: There are a lot of factors involved. It is a question of the investment, the gas industry and North Sea gas. The financial objectives of the gas boards for 1962–63 and 1966–67 were agreed for the industry in 1962, by hon. Gentlemen opposite. They were only continued in 1967–68 because of the present prices and incomes policy.

Fuel Policy

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Minister of Power if, in view of the unstable situation in the Middle East and the action of the Arab countries in cutting off oil supplies to the United Kingdom, he will now give a general direction to the National Coal Board not to close any more pits; and if he will take steps to ensure that there is no further running-down of the coal mining industry.

Mr. Rowland: asked the Minister of Power what reassessment he has made of the future levels of coal production in the light of current and possible future interruption of oil supplies from overseas.

Mr. Alison: asked the Minister of Power to what extent the Government's future fuel policy has been re-examined in view of the uncertainty at present surrounding Middle Eastern oil supplies.

Mr. Marsh: In my review of fuel policy I am taking full account of all relevant considerations, including the adequacy and security of supplies and the

pattern of primary fuel use at power stations.

Mr. Wainwright: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the present restrictions upon oil supplies from the Middle East could either continue indefinitely or recur from time to time? Would he bear this in mind when he decides the part that coal could play in his energy policy for the future?

Mr. Marsh: Again, harking back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, there is nothing in the short period that one could do which would affect coal production, because oil-fired stations and other methods of burning are already in existence. As for dependence on the Middle East for security and supply, this is something which is always in the minds of people looking at this problem. It could not last indefinitely, if only because of the effect on the economies of those countries taking part. To give an example of the extent to which we are already diversifying our sources of supply, the Middle East used to supply three-quarters of our total in the 1950s, and it now supplies one half.

Mr. Alison: To what extent has the supply of natural gas from North Africa been interrupted, and how is the Minister bearing this in mind with a view to the gas industry contributing in the near future?

Mr. Marsh: There is a later Question on the Order Paper with regard to that.

Mr. McGuire: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the lesson to be drawn from this is that our power stations, if they were to depend on oil, would jeopardise the economic prosperity of the country? Will he see that coal indigenously takes care of this, and that we do not depend upon foreign supplies when we can use our own?

Mr. Marsh: The problem here is that the bulk of our oil imports are for non-fuel uses, and in future the big increase in oil consumption will be in non-fuel uses, because there are so many parts of industry which are economically completely dependent on oil.

Sir G. Nabarro: Having regard to the fact that 75 per cent. of our oil imports


are now in peril by the Arab oil cut-off and by the situation in Nigeria, and the fact that the Ministry is taking powers to ration oil in this country, would the right hon. Gentleman not now present his fuel policy before the House rises for the Recess at the end of this month so that we can judge the necessity for oil rationing?

Mr. Marsh: I do not think that anyone can draw a long-term fuel policy on the basis of a short-term interruption. What has happened in the Middle East is something which anyone who is interested in fuel always took into account. We are not at the present time short of oil. Rationing plans have only been introduced as a possible long-stop on this question. Our stocks are very high and we are constantly diversifying our sources of supply.

Natural Gas

Mr. J. H. Osborn: asked the Minister of Power what percentage of the natural gas imported into this country now comes from the Middle East or North Africa.

Mr. Webster: asked the Minister of Power what discussions he has had with natural gas suppliers outside the Middle East and North Africa, to ensure continuity of supplies to the Natural Gas Council until such time as those requirements can be met from the North Sea or Europe.

Mr. Marsh: All imports are obtained from Algeria. There are other sources of natural gas outside North Africa and the Middle East, but in view of the time and capital investment required to provide plant to liquefy the gas for transport to the U.K., they cannot at present be regarded as an alternative to Algerian supplies.

Mr. Osborn: Are the Press reports true that shipments are still being held up? Are the Press reports true that the liquefaction plant at Arzew is closed down? Can the Minister assure us that there are sufficient supplies to carry us over a number of months before the North Sea supply becomes available?

Mr. Marsh: There are no problems in terms of shortage of supply at the moment. We have stocks, as well. There are clearly

difficulties in this field, though some supplies have reached us. I do not want to pursue the matter further at this stage.

Mr. Webster: What impediment has been placed on the import of natural gas from Algeria and what percentage of the contracted amount for the last month has been imported?

Mr. Marsh: Supplies have been continuing subject to some minor dislocation, but the position at the moment is still too uncertain for me to be able to give any detailed reply.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: As this costs twice as much, as reflected in the London price, as does gas from the North Sea, and as the arrangements were made under a Tory Government, what does my right hon. Friend intend to do to cancel the contract if it is not accepted officially by the Algerian Government?

Mr. Marsh: This is not a contract between the Algerian Government and this Government. It is between a commercial company and the Gas Council. There are clauses in the contract which would make it difficult to review, even if we wanted to do so. The main point is that the amount of Algerian methane is a very small proportion of the total gas feed-stocks, and so far there is no evidence that it is not a valuable contract.

Mr. Derek Page: asked the Minister of Power what steps he is taking to evaluate the possible uses of natural gas for non-fuel purposes.

Mr. Marsh: Studies on absorption of natural gas have included non-fuel uses which are mainly in chemical processes. The scope for using natural gas for this or any other non-fuel purposes will depend upon comparative costs and other conditions of supply.

Mr. Page: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the tremendous import savings and the job generation which can be brought about by chemical and metallurgical firms if the gas is made available for feedstock and on-site total enegry generation? Will he make sure that no obstacle is placed in the way of such development?

Mr. Marsh: Certainly.

Steel Prices

Mr. J. H. Osborn: asked the Minister of Power what progress has been made on agreeing steel prices with the European Coal and Steel Community; and what discussions have been held with steel manufacturers from countries outside Europe with a view to stabilising international prices.

Mr. Freeson: Discussions are continuing with the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community about problems arising from the world surplus of steel-making capacity, but no conclusions have yet been reached. The discussions can be widened later to include other countries if it appears that this would be helpful.

Mr. Osborn: How many meetings have been held, and when will there be an outcome?

Mr. Freeson: I cannot answer the last part of the question. There have been two meetings, one in March and one in May.

Oil Supplies (North Sea)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Power what conversations he has had since war started in the Middle East with the persons and companies drilling for oil in the North Sea under licence from him, with a view to giving Government assistance to them in order to increase and accelerate oil supplies to Great Britain from those North Sea oil wells in order to make up a shortage of oil in Great Britain caused by that war.

Mr. Marsh: None, Sir. As I have previously explained to my hon. and learned Friend, there are no oil wells in the North Sea.

Mr. Hughes: Would it not be a useful and constructive move, and would it not save time and energy, for the Minister to include it in his Bill to control liquid fuel, which he proposes to introduce this afternoon and which has not yet reached the Vote Office?

Mr. Marsh: The problem is that we have no oil there to control. We are all very hopeful, as I know is my hon. and learned Friend, that possibilities may

arise in the future, but they are certainly not with us at the moment.

Apprentice Gasfitters

Mr. Bob Brown: asked the Minister of Power if he will take steps to ensure that area gas boards increase the number of apprentice gasfitters in order that they may be in a position to deal with the steady increase in sales of domestic appliances.

Mr. Freeson: It is for the area boards to ensure that they have sufficient trained personnel to meet their needs. They are already planning to increase the number of fitters.

Mr. Brown: Would my hon. Friend accept that it is fairly well known in the trade unions in the industry that there is a great shortage of gasfitters up and down the country and that when conversions start this shortage will be accelerated by private firms filching the men who have already been trained by the board?

Mr. Freeson: I am aware that there are difficulties in this field, but it is as well to keep them in perspective. The intake of apprentices into the industry has doubled in the last five years and the proportion of apprentices to qualified craftsmen is higher than in many other industries.

Gas Appliances (Fixing)

Mr. Bob Brown: asked the Minister of Power if he will list the percentage of appliance fixing jobs allocated to private firms by each area gas board.

Mr. Freeson: This is a matter for the boards, who do not publish such statistics.

Mr. Brown: Would my hon. Friend not accept that there is an undesirably high percentage of the work of appliance fixing being allocated to private firms? Does he want in this country the situation which exists in the United States where gas companies are responsible simply for manufacture and distribution while private industry is responsible for the rest? If he wants that, let him come clean and say so.

Mr. Freeson: As I understand the position, the boards are seeking to maintain a proper balance in this connection bearing very much in mind the point which my hon. Friend made a little earlier—the conversion programme over the years to come. There will be allocations of fitting work to private enterprise and also work undertaken by the boards by direct labour. The area boards sold upwards of two million appliances, other than central heating units, in the year ended 31st March, 1967.

Steel Industry Employees (Union Representation)

Mr. Ted Fletcher: asked the Minister of Power if he is aware of the importance of preventing pressure from being brought to bear on staff in the steel industry not to join trade unions; and what directions he will issue to the National Steel Corporation in this matter.

Mr. Marsh: The Corporation is already under a statutory obligation to establish adequate conciliation and consultation machinery for all the employees of the nationalised steel industry and is now discussing with the T.U.C. how to give effect to this obligation. It has never advised staff not to join unions.

Mr. Fletcher: Is my right hon. Friend aware that circulars and letters have been sent to the staff of Stewarts and Lloyds advising them not to join trade unions? Will he look into the circumstances and suggest to the management that this action is not in the spirit of or in keeping with the Act?

Mr. Marsh: I have seen the letter to which my hon. Friend refers. It certainly does not advise staff not to join trade unions. I should like to make it quite clear that neither I nor the Corporation would tolerate any anti-trade union activity in the nationalised steel industry.

Electricity Tariffs (Increase)

Mr. Ridley: asked the Minister of Power what extra revenue is expected to be raised by the increase in electricity tariffs of 10 per cent. on average.

Mr. Freeson: About £110 million in a full year.

Mr. Ridley: Now that the Socialist Government have control of the com-

manding heights of the economy are they proud of imposing £110 million of extra taxation, a lot of it falling on the poorest members of the community, after a year of great difficulty?

Mr. Freeson: I start by saying that I am not particularly impressed by the hon. Gentleman's new-found concern for the poorest members of the community. [Interruption.] On the question at issue, there have been previous statements by my right hon. Friend as to the reasons for the tariff increases being announced. We must await to see their detailed application by the various boards.

Sir G. Nabarro: Is it not the fact that 97 per cent. of the population are now required to pay this onerous additional tax of £110 million, including all those on National Assistance and all those at subsistence level? Why, therefore, does he deride my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) for his very accurate question?

Mr. Freeson: I am always interested to hear and enjoy listening—

Sir G. Nabarro: The Minister should enjoy answering.

Mr. Freeson: —to the hon. Gentleman. It will be interesting to hear from him how he maintains—

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Freeson: —how he maintains his case that there should not be increased borrowing for the industry while, at the same time arguing in the fashion he does about tariff increases.

EUROPEAN SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROJECTS (COMMITTEE)

Dr. David Owen: asked the Prime Minister if he will appoint a junior ministerial committee charged with the responsibility for integrating European scientific and technological collaborative projects; and if he will announce the composition and chairmanship of the committee.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): No, Sir. Our present arrangements for considering these matters are, I think, adequate.

Dr. Owen: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that there is an urgent need to produce concrete proposals for specific collaborative projects, if his own idea of a scientific and technological community is to maintain its momentum in Europe?

The Prime Minister: I entirely agree, and this is being done. In my recent discussions with President de Gaulle I outlined quite a number of specific projects of a technological character both inside and outside the peaceful use of atomic energy field which could be the basis of technical co-operation in Europe.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Are not the more generalised statements in favour of specific scientific and technological projects in the same category of futility as the statement "I am against sin"? Will the Prime Minister resist adding to the already long list of plausible idealisms under which his Government attempt to bury the main issues?

The Prime Minister: That is a very weighty philosophical pronouncement, but on technical co-operation I agree that in Europe, as in this country, it must be based on a large number of specific hard projects. It is these individual physical projects that we have been discussing with President de Gaulle and more recently with the Italian Prime Minister during his visit to this country.

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)

Mr. G. Campbell: asked the Prime Minister if he will make one Minister responsible for co-ordination of regional development, and progress towards the more even distribution of employment and unemployment.

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member will know of the responsibilities of my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.

Mr. Campbell: In view of the upward trend of unemployment confirmed by the recent Government publication "Economic Trends", will the Prime Minister take action to ensure full co-

ordination this winter, including a close watch on the anomalies of the Selective Employment Tax?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will know of the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the general question of growth and the further action needed to be taken. As to the hon. Gentleman's concern for regional employment, as is shown in his Question, he will know also of the Government's announcement of a very major programme of regional employment premia, as well as the recent increases made in investment grants for development areas.

Mr. Ronald Atkins: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of the Ministries, especially those providing social services, do not seem to be acting in conformity with the Government's regional policy?

The Prime Minister: If my hon. Friend will send me particulars, I will be very glad to go into the matter.

Mr. Heath: Can the Prime Minister deny that under his Administration there will be an increase of unemployment this winter above the seasonal increases?

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said. My right hon. Friend said that if the growth rate slipped behind schedule other action would be taken to deal with the very question the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. The Leader of the Opposition will be glad to know, however, that in Scotland, for example, about which the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) put down this Question, unemployment at the present time is about 18,000 less than it was in the same month of 1963, after the right hon. Gentleman's party had been in power for 12 years.

EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

Mr. Molloy: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement relating to the progress made with Great Britain's application to join the European Economic Community.

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is today


making a statement at a meeting of the Council of Western European Union in The Hague. The text will be published in a White Paper later today.

Mr. Molloy: Will my right hon. Friend agree that, not being in the Common Market, Great Britain has nevertheless in the last couple of years made remarkable recovery to economic stability—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I know that this recovery is upsetting hon. Members opposite. Will my right hon. Friend, further, agree that the Government, supported by both Opposition parties, in their efforts to get into the E.E.C. are now reaching the equivalent stage of applying the kiss of life to a dead duck?

The Prime Minister: I rather take issue with my hon. Friend because I know that all hon. Members opposite are delighted that we are now in balance of payments surplus, even if they do not say so, but it has never been our view that if we failed to get into the Common Market it would not be passible for Britain to survive and prosper. It is, provided our efforts are adequate. As we see it, we shall have a better chance to expand and to contribute to a meaningful Europe if we can be accepted into membership.

Mr. David Howell: Is the right hon. Gentleman trying to reach a transitional associate status for Britain?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that is an idea which we should be contemplating. We have made an application to join. This was discussed by the Council of Ministers last week and resulted in the suggestion that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary should address the W.E.U. today. He is making a major speech on the application, which will be available to hon. Members some time this afternoon.

Mr. Grimond: Will the Prime Minister say whether the statement by the Foreign Secretary gives any indication of what the next Government move will be, and when it will be carried out?

The Prime Minister: The Government's move has been made in the form of the application which went at the beginning of May to the three Communities. It was thought last week desirable to make progress with the basic statement of our position in relation to an application such

as the one made by the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) on, I believe, 10th October, 1961, and that this should now be made at W.E.U., and it is being made today. As soon as my right hon. Friend has sat down, copies of his speech will be available in the Library and a White Paper with the full text will also be available later this evening.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Can my right hon. Friend say what further White Papers the House can expect to receive? When shall we, for example, be receiving a White Paper on means for ensuring strong and binding safeguards for the trade and other interests of Commonwealth countries? Will there be a White Paper on technology giving the information which General de Gaulle has already had?

The Prime Minister: I should like notice on the question of White Papers. On the first suggestion, the question of Commonwealth interests and matters which were so fully debated here in May will, of course, feature in my right hon. Friend's speech. He will also have something to say about technology in his speech.

GRAND NATIONAL

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Prime Minister whether he will move to set up a Royal Commission to inquire into means of perpetuating, as a great British sporting institution, the Grand National steeplechase at Aintree, having regard to the threats to its future.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I know that the future of the Grand National and of the racecourse at Aintree is a matter of great public interest but I do not think that a Royal Commission would be an appropriate way of tackling the problem.

Sir G. Nabarro: As this is the first Question to the Prime Minister on the future of Aintree and the National, and although a Royal Commission may not be the correct body to report, will he say what alternative recourse he would have to save this great British sporting institution for Liverpool and for the whole country in which, free of party, we all have a very real interest?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, indeed. Since the Aintree Racecourse is in my former constituency—

Sir G. Nabarro: That is why I asked the question.

The Prime Minister: —and as a Merseyside Member, I agree with the hon. Member that probably all of us, regardless of party, recognise the very important place which the Grand National holds in the sporting life of the country. All of us, or most of us, would, I think, desire to see it continued—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—well, I said most—but of course the responsibility at the moment is primarily a local and turf matter, with Lancashire County Council holding the key position. Until the change in government in Lancashire County Council plans were advanced for a sports centre on the Grand National racecourse, but I understand that the newly set up council has other ideas.

Mr. Tilney: In the discussions taking place between the City of Liverpool and other interested parties, will the right hon. Gentleman give my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) pleasure by saying that the Government will help the City of Liverpool by giving it a grant to purchase this racecourse?

The Prime Minister: The racecourse is in the area of Lancashire County Council and we had high hopes from the discussions with Lancashire County Council and Liverpool City Council that this problem would be solved. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science has had a series of discussions with Lancashire County Council, Mrs. Topham and others. We must see what is the next move by the county council before deciding on the next step.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does the Prime Minister recall that Eire and France have maintained their national steeplechases? Will steps be taken to see that Britain is not outdone by them?

The Prime Minister: No Merseyside hon. Member who visits his constituency at the week-end of the National can be other than fully cognisant of the interest which Irish breeders take in the National, sometimes with a successful result, but it would be in the interest of most of us that this historic racecourse should be safeguarded—[HON. MEMBERS:

"No."]—I did say most—certainly most of my constituents take that view and I think most others, but we must see what Lancashire County Council is doing, in which case further consultations will be necessary.

MIDDLE EAST

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister what consultations he had with the President of the United States of America and the Israeli Prime Minister before and during the recent fighting between Israel and Egypt; and if he will make a statement about them.

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to the Answers I gave on 27th June following a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick).—[Vol. 749, c. 251–3.]

Mr. Marten: While appreciating the Prime Minister's difficulty and recognising his, I am sure, genuine reluctance to publish these things, would not publication counter some of the rather unkind propaganda made against this country, particularly, for example, in reply to the Prime Minister's statement that he would keep open the Straits of Tiran when in fact no preparations were being made for that at all?

The Prime Minister: The question was a very good one until the inaccuracies of the last few words. One of the things I discussed with the Canadian Prime Minister and the President of the United States was the action co-ordinated between the maritime nations to see what could be done to ensure freedom of passage through the Straits of Tiran. I do not remember saying that Her Majesty's Government were alone going to keep the Straits open for the shipping of the world. This is a matter for all maritime nations. Surely there has been enough experience of unilateral efforts to keep open a waterway.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Has anything been said or done about the recent enormous shipment of planes and other modern arms by Russia to Egypt?

The Prime Minister: I think that there is some information about this question, and of course we all feel that one of


the things to try to be secured in a long-term settlement, a final settlement, should be an international system of arms control for this area, but the future does not lie in building up armed forces again for this area for one side or the other to have another go.

RHODESIA

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Prime Minister whether he will now make a further statement on reopening of talks with Mr. Ian Smith's Government in Salisbury, Rhodesia.

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Prime Minister whether he is now prepared to meet Mr. Ian Smith in Salisbury or London to discuss a permanent settlement of the problem of the independence of Rhodesia.

Mr. Wall: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on Lord Alport's visit to Rhodesia.

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add at present to the Answer I gave on 13th June to a Question by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys). Any further statement on Lord Alport's visit must await his return to this country.—[Vol. 748, c. 305.]

Sir G. Nabarro: While Lord Alport talks, has the Prime Minister observed that the United States of America is importing 50 per cent. more from Rhodesia and that the whole of Britain's former trade with Rhodesia has been replaced by French, German, Dutch and Japanese exports to Rhodesia? What is being done to retrieve this calamitous state of affairs?

The Prime Minister: It is not the fact that the reductions that we made when sanctions were applied by a vote of this House have been made up by other countries. It is a fact that in certain items certain countries did increase their trade. The figures which I think the hon. Membre has in mind relate to trade placed and in course of movement before the adoption by the United Nations of general sanction. Most of the countries concerned have made very severe cuts in their trade and some of them are applying

total sanctions against Rhodesia since that time.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Will the Prime Minister reconsider his decision not to meet Mr. Ian Smith and not let pride prevent the solution of this difficult problem?

The Prime Minister: There is no question of pride in this matter. As the House knows, I had discussions with Mr. Smith last December. What is relevant is whether a settlement is genuinely desired by ruling circles in Salisbury and whether anyone who does desire it would be able to get a settlement without being over-ruled by extremist colleagues. In this connection it was rather depressing when, as the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) said, there were signs of a willingness on the part of Mr. Smith to talk and messages were coming from him but as soon as Lord Alport's visit was announced he denied that he was willing to have talks.

Mr. Wall: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it looks as though there will be a chance of a resumption of talks? Can he say when he expects Lord Alport to report and when the right hon. Gentleman will report to the House?

The Prime Minister: It is too early to say yet, because until today Lord Alport has only had a courtesy discussion with Mr. Smith. He has been out in the country. He has been seeing representatives of varying shades of opinion. I do not think he has yet seen, for example, representatives of the African Nationalists who I understand he is desirous of seeing, and quite rightly so. It is too early to form any view from any messages received. I do not know when he is coming back, but I think he intends to stay until he has completed the job. So many people of all shades of opinion are anxious to see him that I think it may be a little longer than expected.

Mr. Ashley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if sanctions are being undermined in any significant way, this is a reason for not submitting to the illegal Smith régime and for intensifying the sanctions policy?

The Prime Minister: The United Nations provide a procedure in that matter. It is the duty of the Secretary-General to collect information from all


the countries which are bound by these sanctions and to recommend appropriate action to the United Nations.

Mr. Paget: Now that Rhodesia has demonstrated that she can have a favourable balance of payments, in spite of her tobacco and sugar exports being stopped, and that she can increase the total of her trade in spite of sanctions, what is the point of going on?

The Prime Minister: In the first place, she has not increased the total of her trade. In the second place, she has not got a favourable balance of payments. Since my hon. and learned Friend, I remember, within a month of the application of sanctions had already decided that they had failed, I do not think, if he is in touch now with many of the farmers concerned with tobacco, sugar or anything else, he would hold the same optimistic point of view that he expressed on that occasion.

Mr. David Steel: Is the Prime Minister aware of the concern felt at the Answer he gave the other week about the possibility of the British Government going back on the N.I.B.M.A.R. pledge? Would he elaborate on the Answer that he gave?

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add. We made the announcement in December, following the Commonwealth Conference, which, after a long tussle, acquiesced in our having a last go at securing agreement with Mr. Smith, which took place on H.M.S. "Tiger". I have said on a number of occasions that if there was a substantial change in circumstances we would naturally be willing to discuss this matter with the Commonwealth. I cannot go further than that.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have now passed Question Time. Mr. Stonehouse, to answer Written Question No. 16.

SONIC BANG TESTS

The following Written Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. BROOKS: To ask the Minister of Technology whether he will make a statement regarding future sonic boom tests to be undertaken by Her Majesty's Government.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Technology (Mr. John Stonehouse): With permission, I will now answer Written Question No. 16.
Before undertaking any major programme of sonic bang tests it would be desirable to have a relatively small preliminary exercise. It has been decided that during the month of July Lightning aircraft from the Ministry of Technology's Aeroplane and Armament Establishment at Boscombe Down should be permitted to fly supersonically over various parts of Southern England in such a way as to create sonic bangs at intensities known from previous experience to be well below those likely to cause damage.
The flights will be confined to the hours of daytime, and will be monitored by technicians from the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough.

Mr. Brooks: Is the Minister of State aware that his statement will be welcomed by all those who hope that the results of such tests will serve to allay public anxiety about the Concord? Will he, though, tell the House what discussions are to take place with the French Government about the results of these preliminary tests, and say whether the production orders for the Concord will not be confirmed until the results of such tests are seen to be reassuring?

Mr. Stonehouse: I thank my hon. Friend for his first comment, and I congratulate him on the part that he has played in drawing attention to this very serious problem, particularly in an Adjournment debate about four months ago.
On the second point, the options on Concord do not depend upon supersonic flying over land because the economics of the operation of Concord will be even more favourable if confined to flying over the sea.

Mr. R. Carr: While agreeing in principle that it is sensible to have tests, may I ask the hon. Gentleman two main questions? First, could he say more precisely what areas are to be involved and why they have been chosen? Will it not, for example, be right to make sure that the tests are related to reality by having them take place in those areas which would be affected were a commercial supersonic service ever to be permitted?
Secondly, could the hon. Gentleman say something about what arrangements he proposes for the assessment of any damage which might occur, even though it is not expected, and compensating for the damage?

Mr. Stonehouse: We shall bear in mind the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the areas where these tests shall take place. We have considered whether it would be advisable actually to pinpoint where these tests are to be held, but we felt, on the other hand, that it would prove to be a better test of public objective reaction if there were no prior announcement of where the actual tests are to be held.
There will be an opportunity for any claims, although we are not expecting any serious claims to be made, to be considered by the Ministry of Defence Claims Commission.

Mr. Derek Page: Will my hon. Friend not agree that in the interests of objectivity, as well as social equity, it is essential to have any tests conducted away from areas where tests of sonic bangs have been conducted for some time? Bearing in mind that the Wash area is one such locality, it will be essential in trying to get reliable information to keep Concord tests away from this area.

Mr. Stonehouse: I do not want to commit myself to where a test will not be held, but we will certainly bear that remark in mind.

Dr. Winstanley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the statement will be welcomed by all those who live in the North? Further, would the hon. Gentleman assure the House that it will be possible to suspend these tests at very short notice if this should prove to be desirable?

Mr. Stonehouse: Yes, of course, if there were a very serious reaction to a test we would suspend it. But as the tests are being conducted at intensities which are fairly low, we are not expecting any such reaction to take place.
I do not guarantee that the next series of tests, if they are held, will not be held in the North.

Mr. Onslow: What does the hon. Gentleman mean when he speaks of a major programme of sonic bang tests?

When is it likely to take place? Also, would he say how far he expects the Lightning bangs to correspond with those which might be created by the Concord?

Mr. Stonehouse: The character of the bangs created by the Lightning aircraft are not comparable to the bangs expected to be created by the Concord.
We are moving on to a major programme of tests, we hope in collaboration with the French and the Americans, both of whom have already conducted a great series of tests. We do not wish to make any decision about the next programme of tests until we have seen the results of the first tests.

Mr. Richard: Would not my hon. Friend agree that for those who live in west London and in those areas in the flight path into London Airport the position at the moment is extremely difficult? If sonic booms are to be added, frankly it will be intolerable. Is it not about time that the Government did something to reduce the general level of aircraft noise in west London, rather than increase it?

Mr. Stonehouse: As my hon. Friend knows, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is very concerned about this problem and is now considering introducing noise standards into the certification of new aircraft. Furthermore, firms like Rolls-Royce are engaged in advanced research in collaboration with our own establishment to try to reduce noise at source. This is the way to deal with the problem.

Sir D. Renton: Does the hon. Gentleman remember being present at Upwood, in my constituency, in 1965, when some fairly exhaustive sonic bang tests were made? Will he say to what exent those tests were inadequate so as to render necessary the programme which he has now announced?

Mr. Stonehouse: Those tests were interesting, but they were heard by only a small number of people. The tests we have in mind will be available to a larger population. We shall also have them over a longer period, and we shall, we think, be able to get a more objective reaction to these tests.

Mr. Murray: Will the Minister reconsider the possibility of pinpointing where


the tests will be, as old people, in particular, will be made a little more nervous?

Mr. Stonehouse: We considered it very carefully, but I think that, if we were to pinpoint the tests, some old people concerned by the rather extravagant complaints put up about sonic bangs might become more concerned than, in fact, they need be.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is the Minister aware that there has been widespread speculation in the local Press circulating in north-east London that, if Stansted Airport becomes what it is threatened to be, this will be exactly the area over which the sonic boom from the Concord will come? Do the Government intend to carry out any preliminary tests affecting that quarter of London?

Mr. Stonehouse: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on managing to bring Stansted into the question of sonic bang tests, but I want to disabuse him of any suggestion that there is a connection between the two. I am sure that there will be a great deal of Press speculation in the next few weeks about where the test will be held, but I would ask the House to disregard most, if not all, of it.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We shall be hearing more of this.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short business statement.
As the House will have seen from the Order Paper, a Bill for the Control of Liquid Fuel is being presented today.
Because of its urgency, we shall ask the House to consider the Second Reading of the Bill after the Middle East debate on Thursday of this week.

Sir G. Nabarro: Will the Leader of the House recognise at once that the

proliferation of Questions this afternoon to the Minister of Power demonstrated that in every part of the House it was regarded as impossible to consider or debate this matter without the Minister's detailed statement of fuel policy? When is that to come before the House?

Mr. Crossman: I do not think that the issues raised by the Bill are related to fuel policy, and I am sure that, if he will wait, the hon. Gentleman will see that they are not.

COMPLAINT OF PRIVILEGE

Mr. Speaker: I have a Ruling to make.
Yesterday, the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner) drew attention to a matter which appeared to him to constitute a breach of privilege. He referred briefly to a report in The Times of Monday, 3rd July.
I have given very careful consideration to the hon. Gentleman's complaint. In the light of recent precedents, I propose to make no comment on the report except to rule that, in my view, the report does not prima facie constitute a contempt of this House, and does not prima facie involve a breach of any of its privileges.
That means that I cannot allow the hon. Gentleman's complaint precedence over the Orders of the Day, but this has no effect on what the House may choose to do in the matter if it should be raised by a substantive Motion.

BILL PRESENTED

CONTROL OF LIQUID FUEL

Bill to make temporary provision for controlling the supply, acquisition and consumption of liquid fuel in the United Kingdom, and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Richard Marsh; supported by Mr. John Diamond, Mr. John Morris, and Mr. Reginald Freeson; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 298.]

Orders of the Day — COUNTRYSIDE (SCOTLAND) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Mr. Speaker: As is my custom, I have had posted up a list of the Amendments selected. The first selected is No.1.

Clause 1.—(THE COUNTRYSIDE COMMISSION FOR SCOTLAND.)

3.45 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: I beg to move, Amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 16, at the end to insert:
'while taking into account the existing uses of land for agricultural and other purposes'.
To paraphrase them, the functions of the Countryside Commission described in subsection (1) are to enable people to derive greater enjoyment from the countryside, while preserving and, if possible, enhancing the beauties of it. The Commission is instructed to keep an eye on certain matters: it must keep an eye of the potential of developing recreation and tourism, and the economic and social factors involved in so doing must be reasonably balanced.
I need not draw to the attention of the House, though, perhaps, I should draw it to the attention of the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), that within the countryside one of our great industries does its work, and the potential for expansion in that great industry is vast indeed. Many people would go so far as to say that, with the development of scientific resources and knowledge yet to come, we may well find that we have done no more than tap the springs at this time.
I do not wish to burden the Commission with having to give the same weight of consideration to agriculture and forestry as it is invited to give to recreation and tourism, but, where a balanced view has to be taken in the development of those projects, it is equally important that a balanced view be taken in regard to them, too.
Inevitably, certain conflicts will arise. It does no injustice to the hon. Member

for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) to say that on Second Reading and in Committee he found it difficult to be convinced of the anxieties of farmers about what may happen when we have the countryside opened up to the extent proposed. It is idle to ignore that these anxieties exist. I think that there will be teething troubles, but I am confident that, given time, all will come well. I pay a tribute to the Committee for showing considerable patience in allowing me to deploy some of the arguments in our debate.
All we ask by the Amendment is that the Commission shall give thought—no more than that—when considering ideas for developing recreation and tourism to any possible consequences for the interests of agriculture and forestry.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Dr. J. Dickson Mabon): I do not dissent from the view expressed on this Amendment by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart). It was put to us by the National Farmers' Union of Scotland, and I share the concern of the union, as hon. Members opposite do, that Scottlish agriculture should continue to flourish and that, within the framework of this Bill, we ought to give it its proper place. The Amendment, however, though I do not dissent from its spirit, is in drafting terms tautologous. It adds needless verbiage to the Bill—a principle which the hon. Gentleman has often propounded—and it is unnecessary.
Within the wording of the Clause as it stands, that is,
and for the balanced economic and social development of the countryside",
we have taken into account the concept in the Amendment, that is,
the existing uses of land for agricultural and other purposes".
I do not dissent from the principle of this and nor do the Government. That is perhaps why the hon. Gentleman has moved the Amendment, to obtain further assurances. We agree with him and think that it is taken care of. I ask him not to ask us to add these words, which are unnecessary, even though the spirit of the Amendment is very commendable.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 2.—(THE COUNTRYSIDE.)

Mr. John Rankin: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 3, line 2, at the end to insert:
(e) whether the land has been designated as an open space.
The genesis of this Amendment lies in a development taking place on the south side of Glasgow, almost on the city boundaries. Anyone who knows Glasgow will realise the tremendous congestion which exists there, making the need for open space within the city imperative. This also produces a conflict between the need for open space and the need for houses. At the moment, the Glasgow housing shortage is of the order of 80,000. That is the number of persons who want houses in the city and who are on the waiting list.
All Glasgow Members, and other Members representing Scottish constituencies, recognise this enormous pressure. Glasgow is trying to relieve this by exporting as much of its population needing housing to other parts of Scotland as is agreeable. This still leaves the conflict between the need for space, which is essential, and the demand for houses. One must not continue building within any great city, because one creates a density which is far too high. One way we can decrease density is by providing open spaces, for play and recreation.
Already on the south side of Glasgow, congestion has become so great that the Secretary of State recently declared that the area was a congested area. He refused to grant permission for the development of a football park—Cathkin Park—for housing purposes and has decided that it must be conserved as an open space because of over-development in that part of the city. He has said that a great development is already taking place there, on an area which had been a playground for 35 years. This has now been wiped out. In that part of Glasgow there is now no open space. This is despite the fact that if the Glasgow Corporation had chosen to do so, it could have found all the open space that it required for housing only a little beyond its boundaries.
That open space beyond the boundaries still remains. The purpose of the Amendment is to ensure, if the House sees fit to adopt it, and I hope that it will, that little bits of the countryside will be

brought into the towns and retained there against the demands of housing, to be kept as playgrounds for the children who live in great cities like Glasgow. This is a simple and fair demand. It may be said that it might prejudice housing, but local authorities, particularly in large cities, have to look for housing space outside their boundaries as well as within. There is still plenty of land in Scotland to accommodate the overflow from the large cities without encroaching on the remaining free spaces in these cities.

Mr. William Hannan: I have listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) and I can understand his concern to maintain some open spaces within the city. However, I should like to ask whether it is not the position that at the moment the local authority is the judge of these matters, and can decide to what extent an area within the city can, and must, remain an open space. I believe that Glasgow corporation has recently made representations to the Scottish Department about this matter, in another connection.
It is now the city's view that the open spaces should be more numerous than previously envisaged, at various points in the city. I do not know what particular site my hon. Friend has in mind, but there are some local owner-occupiers who do not want open spaces near to them to be made into housing developments, and these have made representations too.
Can my hon. Friend tell me whether local authorities have the power to say to what extent an open space should be either divided or attenuated or whether they can deal with such a matter? I would ask him not to press the Amendment, because the point that he wishes to make would be covered by subsection (2,b) of this Clause, lines 40 to 42, of which say:
in the case of extensive areas of open land within burghs or other centres of population, the suitability of that land for open-air recreation …
If this is so, I am prepared to leave the local authorities to judge.

4.0 p.m.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: To some extent my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) has posed the


problem at which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) hinted and which local authorities face. The principle for which my hon. Friend the Member for Govan is arguing is covered by paragraphs (b) and (c), although I agree that it is not easy to translate it into practice.
Although he did not name it, I think that my hon. Friend was referring to the problem of the Hillpark site of Glasgow which those of us who were born in the city and know it well know to be on a prominent hill in the Pollokshaws area of Glasgow. Much of the site is steeply sloping and the bulk of the land on the top of the hill is for school use. Most of the surrounding area is occupied by housing and the closest large open space is a quarter or half a mile away.
Part of the land was scheduled for housing in the 1960 quinquennial review and at the end of 1961 Glasgow Corporation advertised an amendment to the development plan which extended the residential area to form a housing site of 26 acres in all. I agree that the proposal was defective, because of a technicality of procedure, and had to be advertised a second time and therefore excited more objections than were expected A public inquiry was held. The corporation proposed a total of 1,400 houses for the site, but the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble), on receiving the report of the public inquiry, agreed with the reporter that the density was too high, and he accordingly suggested that it should be reduced by almost half to accommodate 770 houses.
However, the right hon. Gentleman consented to its residential zoning and it was only later, in 1965, when I met the corporation and discussed the whole of Glasgow's problems with it, when we tried to get a balance of both points of view, that the problem of Hillpark arose again. It was felt that 770 houses was still too high a density for that particularly advantageous area. Later we consented, with reluctance, to a development of some 500 houses on the site. Work began last Christmas and is now in progress.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Govan will appreciate, we cannot do anything about that issue now. What

we are now discussing is the general principle of the best use of open spaces in a very congested city such as Glasgow.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: What does the hon. Gentleman mean by "advantageous area"? Is this a planning term? What did he mean when he used the term to describe Hillpark?

Dr. Mabon: I am talking strictly in planning terms. I do not know whether I am quoting the reporter absolutely correctly, but in my opinion this is a particularly good site in the context of the argument which my hon. Friend the Member for Govan was adducing. However, I must point out that, like individuals, Ministers inherit situations, and we inherited a situation whereby, after a public inquiry, the Secretary of State had agreed to the residential zoning of this area. We have since suggested that the density, which was originally suggested as being about 700 houses, should come down to precisely 509. That has been agreed and I deliberately used the expression "with reluctance".

Mr. Speaker: I have allowed the Minister to answer the illustrative argument. He must now come to the Amendment itself.

Dr. Mabon: I am much obliged. You have been more than tolerant, Mr. Speaker, in this regard. My hon. Friend was trying to draw the general argument based on a particular instance.
We have done our best to meet the need for the provision of adequate open spaces and amenity in towns and we are constantly urging its importance on local planning and housing authorities through our own planning and housing divisions. What the Hillpark site has demonstrated is that we now have a definite agreement with Glasgow, which, as everyone will admit, has peculiar problems, and we have an understanding that twice a year we will consider the matter afresh to see that we have a good understanding of the development of Glasgow in planning terms. It will be recollected that in the Civic Amenities Bill and in other legislation, and in circulars we have urged various authorities in Scotland, particularly Glasgow, to consider this matter constantly and to see whether they have struck the balance correctly.
My hon. Friend can take strength from the fact that what he proposes is covered by paragraphs (b) and (c) of this Clause and to add his suggested paragraph (e) would simply rehearse what had already been said. I know that he is not so much interested in adding another line to the Bill as in covering the principle which he has advocated and in making it clear, not only to the legislators but to the policy makers, that we have to make sure that we do all we can to maintain a proper balance between open spaces and housing development. That is constantly under review with particular reference to Glasgow.

Mr. Stodart: I listened to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) with considerable sympathy, but I was very much swung by what the Minister of State said in reply and also by his reply to my Amendment, which he declared to be unnecessary. I wished to add 14 words to the Bill which I had thought would make a slight improvement, but the Minister said that they were not necessary. I had thought that the 10 words which the hon. Gentleman sought to add were well covered by paragraph (b). I should therefore like to commend the Minister of State for his consistency so far.

Mr. Rankin: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all he did about the specific case which I raised, although I did not name it. I kept clear of it, because, as he will appreciate, I am closely identified with it and I did not want to appear even to seem to have an interest. I tried to argue the general case of the conflict which is taking place in Glasgow between the need for space and the need for houses. I believe that in the interests of the overall health of the city space is as important as housing. While I recognise the rights and powers and duties of the corporation, the corporation cannot have an unchallenged authority to go ahead with development, however worthy, without the Secretary of State having some say, and he has imposed a veto on a development in the south side, which is nearer to the centre of Glasgow than is Hill Park.
My hon. Friend has told me that my new subsection is not necessary because all that I want to achieve is compre-

hended in subsection (2,b). I have trusted him so far, and I will continue to do so. I accept what he says.
In view of his promise, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 3, line 26, at the end to insert:
(7) Every local planning authority shall make available for inspection by the public at all reasonable hours and without charge copies of the maps relating to their district which have been approved by the Secretary of State under this section, including any amendmens of those maps which have been approved as aforesaid, and copies thereof, including reproductions on such scale as may be appropriate, shall be made available by them on sale to the public at a reasonable cost.
This new subsection ensures that copies of the maps of the countryside approved by the Secretary of State under Clause 2 will be available for the public to inspect and purchase if they wish. I promised the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) at the second sitting of the Standing Committee that I would look into the matter and discuss it with the Association of County Councils. I have so done. This Amendment meets that pledge.

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: May I put a point to the Minister of State? The new subsection states specifically that the local authority shall print and publish the maps. Will they be available, too, to the Stationery Office? If anyone visiting Scotland had a mind to see some of the open countryside and some of the areas which have been designated, he would want to know in advance where they are. Will the maps be published by the Stationery Office or, failing that, will they be listed in some way by the Stationery Office in order that the public may get them?

Dr. Mabon: No, Sir. I think that the Countryside Commission will probably keep a reference of these maps. Either the Countryside Commission will advise persons that they can get them from the appropriate county council or they will be able to supply the maps themselves. But I should not like to say that all local county councils will have them printed at H.M.S.O. Some of them might. I do not know. They might be printed


by a local printer, which is the sort of thing we like to encourage. We shall try to get a central body—I take the point—so that those visiting Scotland may get the maps from the central body if they cannot get them locally.

Mr. Stodart: May I thank the hon. Member? He has completely met the point which was raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) and myself. It is important that the public should be able to get these maps.
May I follow the suggestion of my hon. Friend he Member for Banff (Mr. Baker), which I think is a good suggestion, by pointing out that one of the central organisations might conceivably be the body to which perhaps most holiday-makers would turn—the Scottish Tourist Board. Although they did not do the printing, at least they might act as agents for distribution. I appreciate that the hon. Member wishes to examine the point.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 3.—(DUTIES OF THE COMMISSION.)

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 4, line 2, at the end to insert:
'and in the exercise of their functions in the Highland and Islands, to consult and collaborate with the Highlands and Islands Development Board'.

Mr. Speaker: We will discuss, at the same time, Amendment No. 33, in page 59, line 1, at end insert:
'Highlands and Islands' has the same meaning as in section 8(1) of the Highlands and Islands Development (Scotland) Act 1965.

Mr. Campbell: In Committee, the Minister of State said that he would consider this point but at the time he raised the objection that if the Highlands Board were specified, other bodies would have to be mentioned, too, and this would lead to a great number of bodies having to be included in the Bill by name. He particularly mentioned the Nature Conservancy and the Forestry Commission.
We, too, have considered the point since the Committee discussion. We believe that if the Highlands Development Board is doing its job properly as set out

in the Highlands and Islands Development Act—as we hope it will—then it is quite different in character from the other bodies, particularly the two which the Minister mentioned. The Highlands Board is unique in character and in the kind of work which we expect it to do. It will undoubtedly be considering, as part of its functions, schemes for open country in the Highlands and Islands and the use of land for recreation, no doubt, as well as for other purposes—land which is available for outdoor recreation.
We therefore consider that consultation and collaboration between the Countryside Commission and the Highlands Board is essential and that this ought to be written into the Bill. Otherwise, we fear, there may be duplication or conflicting schemes being considered. Because the Highlands Board is a very special kind of body and because the Highlands and Islands form a very special kind of area, we believe that these words should be added to the Bill.

Mr. John Brewis: I believe that the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) are well founded. We have given the Highlands Board very extensive powers and duties. One of their duties concerns land use in the Highlands. It seems to me that there will undoubtedly be considerable duplication if the Countryside Commission may enter an area without consulting the Highlands Board. We have seen in other legislation that if we do not specifically provide for something to happen, often it does not happen. There is a very good case for making it statutorily necessary that there should be consultation in the Highlands Board's area.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: The arguments against the Amendment are as they were before, and they were very strong. Both the Opposition and ourselves have had time to think about this matter, and we have certainly gone over it again. I am sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) is not here, and I apologise for not giving credit to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) in relation to the last Amendment, which was sponsored by both hon. Gentlemen. He advanced an argument reflecting particularly on our


earlier argument about a water authority and pointed out that I was keen not only on consultation but on collaboration.
The hon. Gentleman said that we should specify not only consultation but collaboration, but that is covered by Clause 3(b), which reads:
to encourage, assist, concert or promote the implementation of any proposals with respect to those matters made by any other person or body, being proposals which the Commission consider to be suitable;".
That deals with the argument about consultation and collaboration. I was struck by that argument at the time, but I did not then recognise the full merits of Clause 3(b). That is the first answer to our discussion in Committee, and I did not then mention it.
The first of the other two arguments is that this is unnecessary because it is already included in the Bill. There is no suggestion that the Bill deliberately leaves out consultation or collaboration with the Highlands and Islands Development Board. It is covered in the whole of Clause 3. The second argument is that it is not desirable, because if we include it it then becomes a reflection on other bodies. This is a serious argument. I have heard other people commenting on the fact that if we include this or any other body, we should have to include the Forestry Commission and the Nature conservancy, because they have a distinct and important part to play in this future Act. We should then have an exhaustive list of the various bodies which are concerned.
The Chairman of Study Group 9 of the Countryside Conference was the man who is now Chairman of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. At no time has he made representations to us that we must make mention of the Highlands and Islands Development Board in the Bill. If anyone could be expected to want this Amendment, it would be Professor Grieve himself. However, he is content with the provision as it stands in the knowledge that, as Chairman of that Board, he and the new Chairman and members of the Countryside Commission are bound to act in the way that hon. Gentlemen opposite advocate, and I think that it is only proper that the Board and the Commission should live together.
The Board is vitally concerned with land use in the Highlands, and the Commission is bound to be involved in land use generally. I accept that the Commission and the Board will have to work together amicably both at the stage of consultation and at the stage of translating that into action.
However, it is a mistake to spell it out without following it up by listing all the other bodies. That would be a very difficult and treacherous exercise upon which to embark. I have not taken the matter further because, since those concerned are content, there is no reason why we should make the Amendment. While we do not disagree with the arguments of hon. Gentlemen opposite in principle, we feel that we should not make the Amendment, which would add to the Bill without adding to the real work of the bodies concerned.

Mr. Stodart: Mr. Stodart rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) has exhausted his right to speak.

Mr. Stodart: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I have not addressed the House on this Amendment.

Dr. Mabon: It only seems that way.

Mr. Speaker: I am extremely sorry. Mr. Stodart.

Mr. Stodart: That was a disappointing reply, which fell far below the Minister of State's usual level. For him to describe the waters upon which we are trying to get him to embark as difficult and treacherous is to make very heavy weather of it. He has referred to the views of the Chairman of the Highland and Islands Development Board, but that gentleman is not immortal, and the time may come when a successor of his is no longer as acquainted with Study Group No. 9 as Professor Grieve.
The main gravamen of the hon. Gentleman's objection is that if the Highlands and Islands Development Board is mentioned, the Forestry Commission, the Nature Conservancy, the Crofters' Commission, and so on, will be furious with indignation, envy and rage because they are not mentioned. It is true that the Highlands and Islands Development Board is a unique body. Even when rural


development boards are set up in England and Wales, they will not be exactly similar or have the same powers. However, can the hon. Gentleman give us any assurance that representations have been made to him along the lines that if the Highlands and Islands Development Board is mentioned, the other bodies to which I have referred will be extremely cross?

Dr. Dickson Mabon: It is not a question of amour-propre. If one proceeds to list a number of organisations, the clear implication is that certain other organisations which are not mentioned are statutorily not required to be consulted. That is the great mistake in trying to embark upon a list. It is not the ones mentioned in the list which are blessed. It is the ones not mentioned which may be unblessed.

Mr. Stodart: I am not certain what amour-propre is. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman had better explain it to me afterwards, because I have no doubt that he knows what it is. I think that I know what the first word means.
In its admirable Report, Study Group No. 9 felt it necessary and advisable to draw attention to the fact that the very closest relationship would have to exist between the Countryside Commission and the Highlands and Islands Development Board. I read the relevant extract in Committee. Being a great pioneer of non-repetition, I do not propose to read it again. However, the fact remains that the Study Group put on record the importance which it attached to a very close relationship between the two bodies.
I think that the hon. Gentleman has put up a poor defence. I do not see the difficulties and treachery which would be involved if he gave way to us. However, I must confess that I do not regard this Amendment as being any more than an improvement to the Bill. It will neither make nor break the Bill, and I do not imagine that my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) will feel inclined to divide the House.

Mr. George Willis: I was attracted to the Amendment because it seemed to express the relationship which Professor Grieve wanted to establish between the Countryside Commission

and the Highlands and Islands Development Board. My hon. Friend said that Professor Grieve had made no representations to change the wording of the Bill, but has he asked Professor Grieve whet her he would like the proposed words added to it?
That is the relevant question; not whether Professor Grieve has come along to say something about what is in the Bill. I doubt whether he has even seen this Amendment. Therefore, I think that the first part of my hon. Friend's argument is quite wrong. It does not stand up to examination.
The second part of his argument does not stand up to examination, either. He says that if we put in the Highlands and Islands Development Board, we shall have to mention other bodies. But that is not true. What one does is to consult with such local planning authorities as appear to the Commission to have an interest in these matters and, without prejudice to that, in the exercise of its functions in the Highlands and Islands to consult and collaborate with the Highlands and Islands Development Board.
In other words, this drafting device is actually used in the Bill; without prejudice to the generality, something is mentioned. I cannot see that that device should not be used in this case, and that rather destroys the second argument adduced by my hon. Friend against this Amendment.
It seems to me that, on both counts, the arguments against the Amendment are not very good ones. With great respect to my hon. Friend, they seem to be very bad ones. Had I been in opposition, I have no doubt that my language would have been much stronger.
I remember discussing the relationship of the Highlands and Islands Development Board to the Commission with Professor Grieve. When I read the Amendment, it seemed to me that the proposed words put in writing exactly what he wanted, which was for the Countryside Commission to have an overall responsibility for Scotland, but that there should be collaboration between the Commission and the Highlands and Islands Development Board. If my hon. Friend is quoting Professor Grieve, he ought to quote exactly what he wants. This Amendment seems to express that.
When one comes to examine the situation of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, it is different from that of any other body because of the functions with which it is charged. I should have thought that there was a case under the Highlands and Islands Development Act for spelling it out rather more clearly. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) said, Professor Grieve is not immortal. We do not know how the two Chairmen will get along together. We have not yet appointed the Chairman for the Countryside Commission.
The last words of the paragraph are:
… to consult with such local planning authorities and other bodies as appear to the Commission to have an interest in those matters;".
In other words, the Chairman decides. I do not know whether the words are very good or not. I was not on the Committee and I did not apply myself to them in order to devise Amendments. But, as the Commission decides, much depends on the relationship between the two chairmen.
It would, therefore, be a good idea if my hon. Friend reconsidered incorporating the Amendment into the Bill. I do not think that the words could go in as they are, but I do not think that they would require much alteration. I believe that it would be necessary to insert some words saying that the generality of the previous statement is not prejudiced, but that is for the draftsmen to decide. If that is done I can see no argument for not including the words.

Mr. G. Campbell: I am very sorry that the Government have not welcomed the Amendment or decided that such words should be written into the Bill after all the time that they have had to reconsider the matter. The arguments have been put very succinctly, particularly by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), and I should have put the same arguments in reply to the Minister. I hope that before the Bill goes to another place the Minister will consider a form of words—we are not wedded to the form of words in the Amendment—which would add this point, together with an addition such as the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East suggested if necessary.

Mr. Rankin: It seems to me that an unstated assumption has developed in the argument, the assumption that unless the Amendment is incorporated in the Bill the chairman of the Commission and the chairman of the Highlands and Islands Development Board will not work together in a co-operative frame of mind. That is a wrong attitude to take both to the Commission and to the Board, because the assumption should be quite the opposite; it should be that these two eminent persons, both with a definite function in the Highlands, will work together.
If they will only be propelled along those lines by the incorporation of the Amendment why was I treated differently from the chairman of the Commission? Is it to be assumed that because words I wanted incorporated were not incorporated I shall not now work happily with my hon. Friend in trying to carry out the purpose of the Bill? The Bill is related so closely to me that its effect comes almost to my back door. That is even closer than it will affect either the chairman of the Commission or the chairman of the Board.
I do not want to see this spirit entering the argument at this stage, and I hope that the Amendment's supporters will lift their thoughts a little higher and not base their arguments on unwarranted assumptions.

Mr. William Baxter: I agree with my hon. Friend the Minister in this matter. I think that it would be very wrong to specify the Highlands and Islands Development Board or any other organisation. There is more or less a general instruction laid down in the Clause to consult as and when it is necessary Stirling County Council, Aberdeen County Council, the Board or any other body. The obligation is upon the Commission to do so. It would be remiss of us to accept the Amendment specifically to lay down that the Highlands and Islands Development Board is an organisation apart. It has a particular function and duty to perform, just as local authorities have. A town council is entirely different from a county council, and a district council is also different. So is the Board, and so are the Forestry Commission and any other body that may be set up, such as a regional council, or perhaps a river purification board that


requires to be consulted for boating purposes.
I counsel my hon. Friend to remain firm on the Clause as it is. It presupposes that all organisations with a part to play in the general development of our countryside will be consulted. Another Clause indicates quite clearly that even when planning permission has been given for the development of areas such bodies have an obligation to make all their records available to the Commission, which will look after the interests of the countryside.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Minister that there is sufficient in the Clause to make it abundantly clear that consultation must take place with all the parties or organisations interested in the development of our countryside. I am amazed at the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) being so insistent on specifying a particular organisation when the Clause has such general and all-embracing terms.

Mr. George Lawson: I should like to say just a word for my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), not in support of what he says but rather by way of excuse. My right hon. Friend fathered the Highlands and Islands Development Board. It is his child and naturally he wishes to see it grow and gather to itself as much as possible. I should not be surprised if we find him seeking to inject some reference to the Board into every Bill relating to Scotland. That is understandable, but it does not mean that we on this side of the House should accept these arguments, much as we respect and sympathise with my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Willis: During the past six months I have spoken once in the House, I think. I do not know how many Scottish Bills have gone through that have not once mentioned the Highlands and Islands Development Board. The point that my hon. Friend is missing is that whether he likes it or not here are two bodies with a very similar function to perform in preserving and developing the countryside, two bodies each given powers by an Act of Parliament. This creates a difficult situation of arrangements between the two.

Mr. Lawson: Perhaps I am to blame for this. In the past, I very much enjoyed the participation of my right hon. Friend in debates, and I have repeatedly appealed to him lately to shake himself out of it and give us the benefit of his wisdom, but, unfortunately, in shaking himself out of it he comes back on the wrong track.
With reference to the argument about uniqueness, I should have thought that any of these bodies in itself is unique. Certainly, the Crofters Commission is unique. We have only one Crofters Commission, and it has a special function. I should have thought that the Nature Conservancy was unique. I do not know of half a dozen Nature Conservancies. It is true that the Forestry Commission functions in other parts of the United Kingdom beside the Highlands, but it is a unique body. One might also refer to the Scottish Tourist Board. It is unique. It has special functions to fulfil. Were I the chairman of any of these bodies, or had I fathered any of them, I should have been pushing for them to be brought in.

Mr. Willis: I am astonished to find that my hon. Friend seems not to be displaying his usual keenness of thought and mind. I have always admired his analytical powers. But he does not seem to have grasped what he is talking about. None of the bodies that he has mentioned has the functions of the Countryside Commission.

Mr. Lawson: I could not describe the specific functions of all these bodies without going out of order. I am not arguing that they have the same functions as the Highlands and Islands Development Board. Of course, they have different functions. Here lies their uniqueness. They have several distinct functions. In the sense that they are single bodies with distinct functions, they are unique.
I am merely replying to the argument advanced from the other side of the House about uniqueness, and I say that the argument is absurd. The Bill has a full day before it, and hon. Members opposite seem to feel that they must fill in the day by advancing arguments. I had no intention of intervening until I heard the provocative speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh,


East (Mr. Willis). I hope that the Minister of State will stick to his guns.

Mr. James Davidson: I oppose the Amendment. If the Minister of State gives way on it it will put him in a very awkward position. While it would be possible to argue—it may yet be possible to do so—that the need for a Countryside Commission is questionable and that the functions might be performed by the Highlands and Islands Development Board and rural development boards elsewhere in Scotland, if we are agreed upon the setting up of a Countryside Commission it would obviously be a mistake to accept the Amendment because it would lead the Minister to having to mention every other body which might need to be consulted. I hope that the Highlands and Islands Development Board will be consulted when any measures that affect it are introduced, but the Amendment would leave the Government open to much wider questions on the whole Clause.

4.45 p.m.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I am much obliged for the support which has come from both sides of the House in face of the objections raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis). I would remind him that Professor Grieve did not raise the point at the original meeting in May last year on the Bill. The authorship to a large extent must be credited to my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East last year, when the meeting was held to discuss this matter. I think that my right hon. Friend is doing an injustice to his friend Professor Grieve when he says that Professor Grieve is unaware or appears to be unaware of the proceedings on the Bill. I know that Professor Grieve has followed the proceedings on the Bill most closely.

Mr. Willis: Let my hon. Friend get what I said right. I said that I did not suppose that Professor Grieve had seen these Amendments. Is my hon. Friend telling me that Professor Grieve has seen them?

Dr. Mabon: The Highlands and Islands Development Board has not asked to be mentioned in the Bill in relation to the Commission. The wording of the Bill is precisely the same as that in the Highlands and Islands Development Board Act. It is for that reason—

Mr. Willis: I know that my hon. Friend is an expert wriggler, but he cannot wriggle out of the question that I put to him. I said that he might like these words. What I asked him—he still has not answered—is whether Professor Grieve has seen these Amendments.

Dr. Mabon: I take the point of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin), that we do not lay down Acts of Parliament on the say-so of any one individual. I think that it would be wrong of me to answer the question, whether or not I know the answer. The point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Govan is correct. The fact is that the Highlands and Islands Development Board as such has not requested that it should be mentioned. Even if it had, that still does not answer the major point of criticism about mentioning the Highlands and Islands Development Board and other bodies—the Crofters Commission is also a unique body in terms of the Highlands—that bodies which were not mentioned might he placed in a disadvantageous position.
My right hon. Friend dismissed that argument as of no consequence whatever. I put it to him that it was a very serious matter that was taken into account in previous discussions leading up to the Bill, quite apart from Professor Grieve or my right hon. Friend or any speeches made in the House. As the Minister in charge of the Bill here, I feel that the argument about exclusion is a decisive one in this context, and I am not prepared to recommend that we should make the Amendment. Naturally, I shall report this discussion to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and it will be up to him to decide what might he done during the later stages of the Bill. For the moment I am content to join those who have said that we ought not to make the Amendment at this stage.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 6.—(POWERS OF COMMISSION IN RELATION TO DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OR SCHEMES.)

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 6, line 28, to leave out 'them' and to insert 'the Commission'.

The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): I wonder whether the Minister of State can guide the House. There are twelve successive Government Amendments. I wonder whether it would be for the convenience of the House for them to be considered together. The other Amendments are Nos. 6 to 16.

Mr. Stodart: That will be agreeable, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Dr. Mabon: Yes, I am much obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Amendment No. 5 is a simple drafting one. Amendments Nos. 6 to 16 are eleven related Amendments which take up suggestions made by hon. Members opposite in Committee. I have discussed the various points with the County Councils Association, and the Amendments are very much commended by the Association as being sensible ones to make.
I expressed the view in Committee that we had not got quite right the solution in the Clause as originally drafted and that we ought to make some alterations to make the procedure clear. The effect of the Amendments is to provide that in areas of special planning control both the Commission and the Secretary of State will be advised of all planning applications of a kind specified in the appropriate direction. The Commission will then be required, after consultation with the local planning authority, to make representations to the authority on the manner of disposing of the application. The authority will then in turn advise the Secretary of State of its views on the Commission's recommendations. Finally—I think that this will commend itself to the House—the Secretary of State will decide whether or not he should call in the application for decision by himself. So here we now have a clear-cut piece of machinery which leaves the local planning authority with an effective voice on the one hand but at the same time gives a definite and important locus to the Commission and recognises the ultimate authority of the Secretary of State in planning matters.

Mr. Stodart: I am obliged to the Minister. I recall an occasion in Committee when I moved a series of Amendments about which the hon. Gentleman rather heat me about the head and then unex-

pectedly said that he thought I had a point. He has met the main arguments that I put, no doubt without the lucidity that one associates with him. I felt that with the Clause as it originally stood in relation to area of social beauty the Secretary of State and the local planning authority could arrange things entirely between themselves without the Commission being brought into the picture at all, thereby making what I thought was complete nonsense of the position which we think that the Commission should occupy.
The Amendments operate if the Secretary of State asks for information about applications for planning permission, and the information must be given so far as these areas are concerned to the Commission as well, and after the Commission has talked things over with the local planning authority in question, it is bound to make its recommendations to the local planning authority as to how it ought to proceed. If there is a dispute, as the hon. Gentleman said, the Secretary of State has the last word, as he had before the Amendments were made; but they have the effect of bringing the Commission into the centre of the picture so far as these particular areas are concerned. Accordingly, I think that the Amendments considerably improve the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 9.—(AREAS OF SPECIAL PLANNING CONTROL.)

Amendments made: No. 6, in page 8, line 12, leave out 'specify' and insert:
'in any particular case allow'.

No. 7, in line 13, leave out 'either'.

No. 8, in line 13, leave out 'or' and insert 'and'.

No. 9, in line 13, at end insert:
',and the authority may when giving that information indicate the manner in which they propose to dispose of the application'.

No. 10, in line 14, leave out subsection (5).

No. 11, in line 19, leave out from beginning to 'within' in line 20 and insert:
'After consultation with the local planning authority concerned the Commission shall'.

No. 12, in line 21, leave out second 'the' and insert 'such'.

No. 13, in line 22, after 'permission', insert:
'or such longer period as the Secretary of State may in any particular case allow,'.

No. 14, in line 23, leave out 'concerned'.

No. 15, in line 26, leave out from 'and' to end of line 30 and insert:
'the authority shall notify the Secretary of State whether or to what extent those recommendations are acceptable to them.'.

No. 16, in line 31, leave out subsection (7) and insert:
(7) The Secretary of State shall as respects any application for planning permission in relation to which directions under subsection (3) above are in force intimate to the local planning authority concerned whether he desires that the application should be referred to him under section 13 of the Act of 1947 (reference of applications to the Secretary of State) and the authority shall not grant planning permission in respect of any such application until the Secretary of State intimates to them that he does not so desire.—[Dr. Dickson Mabon.]

Clause 11.—(RIGHTS OF PUBLIC WHERE ACCESS AGREEMENT OR ORDER IN FORCE.)

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 18, in page 9, line 24, at the end to insert:
within the meaning of the Civil Aviation Act 1949 as extended by the Airports Authority Act 1965.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) during the fifth sitting of the Committee raised a point about unlicensed airfields and gliding sites. I said that this was covered by the definitions in these Acts. I have given a little more thought to this point and I think it should be put into the Bill. We are thereby bringing heliports in as well as gliding sites, in which the hon. Member has a distinct and personal interest.

Mr. Hector Monro: I thank the Minister for the trouble he has taken over what may seem a small point. However, when one bears in mind the great development of gliding and aviation in the years to come it is important that we should get it right.
The definition of "aerodromes" in the Airports Authority Act, 1965, refers to
facilities for the landing and departure of aircraft capable of descending or climbing vertically.
That is clear enough, but there is some doubt nationally whether a hovercraft is

a boat or an aeroplane. I do not think that one can say that hovercraft descend or climb vertically. Later today we will be making a hovercraft into a boat, but this seems to be ahead of thought in most of the other legislation which is going through the House. I should be interested to know why the Minister is putting hovercraft in this category.
Whereas we deal in the Bill with noise in relation to hovercraft, I feel that in our deliberations consideration should have been given to hovercraft being allowed to remain in peace on the ground and not be chased around by tourists and visitors. There is a certain amount of difficulty about the category into which a hovercraft should fall and whether this Amendment will cover its operations on the ground.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I do not think that we ought to debate Amendment No. 32 at this stage. I am advised that hovercraft should be covered by Amendment No. 32 and we ought not to mention hovercraft in Amendment No. 18. Naturally, I bow to the advice of experts, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman does.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 12.—(COMMISSION TO CONSULT WITH LOCAL PLANNING AUTHORITIES ON ACCESS REQUIREMENTS OF THEIR AREAS.)

Mr. G. Campbell: I beg to move Amendment No. 19, in page 11, line 8, at the end to insert:
(a) the observations of the owners and occupiers of the land, who shall have been consulted by the local planning authority.
In Clause 12 the Countryside Commission is required to consult local planning authorities about the availability of land for open air recreation and access to it.
In Committee, we discussed an Amendment which would have obliged the Commission to obtain the views of owners and occupiers. In reply to that the Minister of State said that this would place too much of a burden upon the Countryside Commission, if it had to undertake the task of obtaining the views of owners and occupiers concerned. However, he indicated that the local planning authorities would be expected to have consulted the owners and occupiers. We believe that this should be made clear


by being written into the Bill. I said in Committee that I would produce another, more acceptable, Amendment in the light of what the Minister had said, and this is it. It places an obligation clearly upon the local planning authorities to obtain the views of the owners and occupiers of the land in question and it ensures that those views are taken into account.

Mr. W. Baxter: I subscribe to the view that the owner of the land should be consulted by the Commission before a decision is taken. The Clause says that the local planning authority will be consulted in these matters, but it does not necessarily follow that the local planning authority consults the owner of the land before it designates land for a particular purpose. It may designate a piece of land for recreational purposes or for any other purpose without in any way consulting the owner of that land. It is wrong to ride roughshod over the rights of the individual. They must be preserved to the greatest possible extent. The least that we can expect the Commission to do is to consult the owner of the land even though it may he designated for open spaces by the local planning authority of a county or burgh. The Commission, before going further in the matter, should listen to the observations of the owners of the land.
There are many factors which must be borne in mind before a piece of ground is used in the way stipulated under the Bill and under the power which will be vested in the Commission. This Amendment is not unreasonable in the circumstances and in all sincerity I ask my right hon. Friend to give serious consideration to the rights not only of the individual who seeks to use the land for recreational purposes, but the individual who happens to be the owner or the occupier of the land. His rights are as important as those of anyone else. There is some justification for this small Amendment being put into the Bill and I ask that serious consideration be given to it.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Brewis: I support the Amendment. Although the need to consult owners and occupiers may well seem formidable, we are dealing largely with hill land, where

there is probably only one owner and only a few occupiers. We are not dealing with smallholdings and crofters. As a general rule, if someone's land, whether he be owner or occupier, is to be affected, it is only right, courteous and proper that he should be consulted before an order is made.

Mr. Hannan: The remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) provoke me to point out that, on a previous Amendment, it was thought inappropriate that we should add words which seemed to give special favour to the Highlands and islands Development Board. My hon. Friend then seemed to he willing that this should not be done because it would give the Board some precedence ever the Forestry Commission, county councils and the rest. I cannot see the difference between the principle of the argument on that Amendment and the principle of the argument on this Amendment which would give to owners and occupiers of land special consideration over what is intended in the Bill. Clause 12(2) says:
In considering what action should be taken as aforesaid, the Commission and the local planning authority shall have regard to all relevant circumstances …
Surely those words cover all that is involved in the Amendment.

Mr. W. Baxter: I hope my hon. Friend will bear in mind the fact that the Commission:
… shall consult from time to time with local planning authorities for the purpose of ascertaining what land … in their areas …
is likely to be taken over. The difference is that local authorities "shall" designate areas of land that they think should be earmarked for particular developments. Surely we are not prepared to say, "You are under no obligation to consult the owner of this land or the person using it before you designate it." What we are saying is that, in common courtesy and decency, this should be done. If I were taking a piece from my hon. Friend's garden for an open space, I should at least tell him what I am doing and consult him.

Mr. Hannan: The first point in reply to my hon. Friend is that it is mandatory on the Commission to consult from time to time. The word is "shall". This is


not a permissive power. Clause 12(1) reads:
… the Commission shall consult from time to time with local planning authorities for the purpose of ascertaining …
for a limited purpose. That limited purpose is specified in Clause 10(2). It is not to take over any land. Clause 10(2) says:
In this Part of this Act 'open country' means any land appearing to the authority …".
The purpose is limited to the designation of open country, not to take it over. Clause 10(2) goes on to describe in broad terms what kind of country is meant:
… mountain, moor, heath, hill, woodland, cliff or foreshore …".
I may be wrong but I think that my interpretation of the significance of the Amendment is as I have described it. There is no need for it.
Right throughout the proceedings of this Bill, I have had some doubts about the way in which people have been so forthcoming in their anxiety to lend their weight and co-operation to the purpose of the Bill. I seem to sense in many of the Amendments adduced—and this is one of them—a spirit of trying to restrict and not advance the scope and aim of the Bill, which is to make the countryside available for all the people.

Mr. Stodart: I must confess that that is the most unexpected speech I have ever heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan). He is essentially a most reasonable person and in a way it surprises me to find myself firmly on the side of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter). The argument of the hon. Member for Maryhill is astonishing when one considers the simple matter of what we are trying to achieve.
We are trying to achieve access, which has not hitherto been given on the scale that it is going to be given, with as much good will engendered all round as it is possible to get. I am a great believer in people being informed of what is going to happen if one is to carry them with one in something that has a measure of novelty about it.
It would be extraordinary if those who will be asked to agree, or possibly have an

order served on them to give access to land, were not brought into the picture by the local planning authority merely as a matter of courtesy at an early stage. Surely one would say to an owner or occupier, "We want access to certain open country. What requirements will be needed to get to that open country?" After all, the Bill is about consultation and access to land. Roads, tracks and paths to such land will inevitably run through land owner or occupied by someone, and it would be on enormous advantage to the local planning authority if, before it returned to the Commission, it asked the various people concerned what the possibilities were.

Mr. Lawson: Mr. Lawson rose—

Mr. Stodart: I am about to sit down, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will contain himself a moment longer. I know that what I am saying must be hard for him to bear.
In Committee, the Minister of State expressed agreement with the principle of the Amendment, but criticised the timing. We have tried to put the timing right. The Minister accepted the principle and I am astonished that the hon. Member for Maryhill has not cottoned on to this. I can only imagine that perhaps he has not quite understood what has been going on, althought there is nothing unpardonable about that. I am sure that this Amendment would be to the enormous advantage of the Bill, but no doubt it may add to the suspicions that hon. Members seem to have. I think that the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) is even more suspicious than usual.
The Bill has universal approval. I am sure that the Minister of State will have been surprised by the good will he has experienced in quarters where he might not have expected it. We are keen for the Bill to work well but it will not get off the ground nearly so effectively if those who are to be concerned are not brought into the picture at an early date.

Mr. Lawson: I accept what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) says about his desire to see the Bill work well. I am not quite as suspicious as he seems to think, although I am suspicious in some respects. I think that the Amendment would make the


Bill a bit of nonsense. Clause 12 deals with instructions being given to the Commission to act in a certain way and to consult the local authorities.
The Amendment seeks to impose a condition on local planning authorities. The Commission is to be instructed when discussing these matters with local planning authorities to take all relevant factors into account. Hon. Members opposite are seeking to impose another prior condition, which is that, before discussing these matters with the Commission, the planning authority should have previously discussed them with the owners or occupiers of the land concerned so as to get their observations in order to be able to put those observations before the Commission.

Mr. G. Campbell: We put down the Amendment because in Committee the Minister of State said that planning authorities would do this in any case.

Mr. Lawson: It would be a very strange planning authority which did not approach the people concerned, but it is one thing to expect a planning authority to do that and quite another to impose the condition that the Commission should take account of the observations of owners and occupiers. It is this imposition of a condition which is unnecessary and which will make it difficult to obtain harmonious operation of the Bill. It is not as though the Commission or a planning authority would go ahead with some plan which would not be brought to the notice of the owners and occupiers of the land concerned.
Clause 13 deals with agreements, and those agreements will be made after full discussion with the owners and occupiers. We are all agreed that the Commission will function by agreement and not by imposition—imposition is the last thing required. There will be agreements with the owners and occupiers of the land concerned and that is the stage at which their observations will be taken into account by the Commission and by the Secretary of State, if he is involved.
It is hon. Members opposite who are suspicious of what they think might be local bureaucracy, but they are seeking to impose conditions in the wrong place and making the Bill needlessly difficult to operate. My hon. Friend the Minister

of State will wipe the floor with these absurd arguments.

Mr. Rankin: I was more than astonished to hear what the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) had to say about my hon. Friend's promise in Committee that owners and occupiers would be consulted. Hon. Members opposite are saying in effect that they do not believe the word of a Member of the Government, the word of a Minister appointed by Her Majesty the Queen. That is a a terrible thing to say about a Minister of honour who has given his word, and it was said by an hon. Member for whom I have a high regard. I was astonished to hear him say that he does not believe a Minister in the Government which I support.

Mr. G. Campbell: Perhaps I can dispel some of the hon. Gentleman's astonishment. In Committee we moved an Amendment to place this obligation on the Commission, and in pointing out that that Amendment was textually incorrect—and "textually" was the word he used—the Minister of State said that the local planning authorities would undertake this consultation. We are not doubting his words, but proposing an Amendment to meet the point.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Rankin: Because the hon. Gentleman is not sure that it will be met; otherwise the Amendment would not be necessary.

Mr. W. Baxter: The only obligation on a planning authority to consult the owner of any land would be a statement by a Minister in the course of debates in the House of Commons, and it would not be binding unless it was specifically stated in the Bill. Local councillors and officials do not read everything which is said in Committee of the House of Commons.

Mr. Rankin: Cannon in front of him, cannon behind him, volley and thunder. I understood that at this stage of the Bill one could make only one speech on any given Amendment. Some of my hon. Friends are managing to make interventions of extreme length and thus to make a number of speeches. I do not mind joining in, because I have been wondering how to get in an extra word.
There is another thing about the Amendment to which I object violently. It refers to the observations by owners. I would have to move an Amendment to the Amendment to exclude absent owners. "Owners" includes absent owners, those who never see the land, except when they come to collect the rent, and some do not even do that.
I have letters in my possession—I went to search for them just now, but could not find them—from which I had intended to quote in connection with this Amendment to demonstrate the atrocities which owners of land in the Highlands of Scotland are now perpetrating and demonstrating; the way in which owners are treating tenants, dispossessing them of their farms and so on. Yet these are the people to whom it is suggested this privilege should be given. I trust the word of my hon. Friend far more than I do any Tory Amendment.

Mr. James Dempsey: I am projected into the debate by the reference of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) to his having cannons behind him. There were no "cannonistic" attacks from this bench. I believe that we do not in any way want to embarrass the Government by including anything which will make the Bill difficult to work, which might make its application ineffective, or create unnecessary administrative difficulties, including those concerned with legal entitlements. I would not be a party to any Amendment which created such unnecessary trouble for the Government.
Nevertheless, at the same time I should like there to be some system of courtesy so that owners of land, not absent owners, but those who might own small allotments which could be regarded as open ground, or houses in nursery gardens, could be consulted about these things.
I am sure that if my hon. Friends knew that in a certain area, without any notice or warning, a bulldozer would arrive on the scene to flatten the owner's garage they would not take this view. I want an assurance that there will be some warning, some consultation, or some method of communication with those who are about to lose their small businesses in this way. I have in mind someone who has a small business, and without any

warning or notice a bulldozer arrives on the scene and flattens his little shop. In a democratic society there should be some method of communicating with people and advising them that this sort of thing is about to happen. They should have every conceivable opportunity to take appropriate action to avoid such a state of affairs developing.
I should like my hon. Friend to assure us that the Bill as it stands will prevent such an incident occurring. If it will, I am sure that we will all be happy about it. If it will not achieve that, the Minister has a certain responsibility in the matter, because when we examine the Bill we are inclined to look at what my hon. Friend the Member for Govan described as the absent owner, and this might cloud our judgment about the principles of the Clause.
Not far away from my constituency there are absentee owners who spend most of their lives in America. There is one absentee owner who was once a prominet figure in the House of Commons. He owns a tremendous amount of land which he never sees, except when he is on a shooting expedition.
The Bill must be watertight to ensure that land which is provided for the benefit of the community is not destroyed without notice to, or consultation with, the owner. I am concerned about the people with small plots of land, or small businesses but I know some people who own vast nurseries in open spaces. They might be seriously affected if there is any possibility of someone merely arriving on the scene without prior notice, and without consultation, for the purpose of tearing up their livelihood. This is not a sport to them. This is their bread and butter. I am concerned about the owners of open ground or land who use it to obtain their livelihood and I would like my hon. Friend to assure us that under the terms of the Bill it will not be possible for people to be treated in the discourteous fashion which I have outlined, that it will not be possible for members of our society, for our ratepayers and taxpayers to be treated in this despicable fashion.
I ask for this assurance because, in spite of the existing planning legislation, some of them are being treated in this way now. It is a disgrace to our society,


and to the United Kingdom. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will assure us that there is no prospect of people being treated in the shameful way which I have outlined. If my hon. Friend can assure us that the Bill will do this, I do not think that the Amendment will be necessary.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: My hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) has asked for assurances of a general kind which are beyond what we are discussing, but I assure him that we do not intend to do any of the dreadful things which he thinks are possible in other circumstances, and which the Bill might perpetuate.
As a Minister I have never been so embarrassed with riches of argument and allies as I am at the moment, and I am grateful to my hon. Friends who have spoken about this matter in their different ways. The Amendment stems from what is almost a reversal of the normal situation, whereby the Minister gives an undertaking in Committee that he will table an Amendment on Report, and he does so. On this occasion, however, we had an undertaking from the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell), who was not quite convinced that what I was saying was right, that he would submit a clarifying Amendment on Report, and this is it.
I was too kind when I said that the hon. Gentleman's previous Amendment was textually wrong. If it had been accepted, the Commission would have been obliged to consult the owners and occupiers of 13 million acres of land, even if it did not propose to do anything about them, and the hon. Gentleman admitted that that was asking too much. We must remember that Clauses 12, 13 and 14 must be read together. They cannot be read separately. The Amendment was wrong because it was unnecessary and also because it was the antithesis of common sense. I appeal to the House to recognise that one has to read these Clauses together. On doing so one realises that the Amendment is unnecessary. It is implicit in these Clauses that what the hon. Gentleman seeks to achieve will be done.
During the discussion on the previous Amendment I said that even if the Amendment was right in what it was

seeking to achieve, it was being proposed in the wrong place, and should be considered in relation to Clauses 13 and 14. I think that I will carry everyone with me when I say that if the three Clauses are read together, including subsection (2,a) of Clause 14 as it stands, not as it is sought to amend it, it is clear that the Commission will have regard to the extent to which access is likely to be available without formal action necessarily being taken to secure it.
A local planning authority obviously will not be able to make an access agreement without consulting the other party to it, and my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) demonstrated this very well in his cogent speech. One of the parties to the agreement must be the owner or the occupier, or perhaps both, of the land concerned.
I have shown that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a distaste for access orders, and will have for their use. Clause 14(2,b) requires the planning authority to be satisfied that it is impracticable to secure the making of an agreement, and the planning authority will not be able to say that unless it has consulted the owners or occupiers.
With regard to the power of acquisition provided for in Clause 24, at which my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie hinted, I assure him that my right hon. Friend would want to have it demonstrated that the requisite access could not be obtained by agreement before he would authorise outright compulsory purchase.
There is nothing in the Bill which will inhibit either the Commission or a local planning authority from consulting owners and occupiers whenever this seems desirable. I have no doubt that in all the appropriate cases this will be done. My hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) always pleads for common sense in Statutes and in organisation. I think that the Commission will want to exercise the maximum amount of commonsense and good will in trying to make Clauses 12, 13 and 14 work, and in trying to make itself accepted generally.

Mr. W. Baxter: Does my hon. Friend realise that there will be no obligation on a planning authority to consult the owner of a piece of ground that is to be designated? The owner of the land may


know of some factors which militate against part of the land being designated as an open space or used for the provision of recreational facilities. There may, for instance, be a loch near the ground, and he may consider that the shore should not be designated as an open space because of the dangerous nature—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This is an inordinately long intervention.

Mr. Baxter: This is rather important, because in different parts of the country there are different types of water, some of which may be dangerous for boys and girls if they attempt to swim there. Only the other week a boy was drowned in my area. This should not have been designated as part of the open space, and the local—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot have debate by intervention. I must ask the hon. Member to bring his intervention to a close.

Mr. Baxter: I will bring it to a close, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at your invitation. My point is—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I should have chosen my words rather more carefully. I intended to suggest that the hon. Member ought to end his intervention now.

Mr. Baxter: I hope that common sense will prevail and that consultation will take place. That is why I think provision should be made in the Bill.

5.30 p.m.

Dr. Mabon: My hon. Friend is right in his illustration. That situation would appear when the local planning authority under Clause 13, proceeded to carry out consultations in order to secure agreement. The trouble is that under our procedure we must concentrate on one Clause at a time. We cannot amend this Clause without understanding the meaning of Clauses 13 and 14, which impinge upon it. My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell argued that the Clause places an obligation upon the Countryside Commission to consult local planning authorities in order to ascertain what land may be consider suitable for acquisition for public access.
There is no question of the Commission's ordering the authority; it is simply

a question of discussing what is possible and desirable. In practical terms a local planning authority would seek to come to an agreement, and if the situation described by my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire arose the planning authority would return to the Countryside Commission and say, "You are wrong. A new situation has arisen which we did not anticipate." Further consultations with the owner-occupiers at the Clause 13 stage may have shown that those who know the area with the intimacy of my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire are entitled to tell the Commission, "This is wrong. We ought to go to the owner now and ask for advice."
Clause 12 does not debar them from doing this. The Clause does not need the Amendment to provide the power. Common sense will dictate that this is what would be done if it were felt that there was some doubt about the area that ought to be acquired.
Whatever were the adverse circumstances, if the situation were not covered by this Clause it would be covered by Clause 13. If there were a bull-headed authority which did not want to come to an agreement, or was treating the owner in an unfair way—although I can hardly envisage it—Clause 14 would cover the situation by providing that a case had to be proved to the Secretary of State, who would clearly consult the owner-occupiers. Therefore, Clauses 12, 13 and 14 cover these circumstances.
The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn wants to get the position right, but I can assure him that the Amendment is quite unnecessary. This has been a useful debate in allowing the Clauses to be explained. If the provisions are left as they are, when we are consulted about the situation by others we shall seek to explain how important it is that the three Clauses should be read together.

Earl of Dalkeith: It seemed to me that the Minister of State was seeking to escape from an acceptance of the Amendment by suggesting that the words that we were trying to write into the Bill were sufficiently well implied in Clauses 13 and 14 as to make them unnecessary, apart from the fact that the Minister maintains that this is the wrong place in the Bill to insert those words.
The hon. Gentleman is overlooking an important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart), which is that it is a good thing to spell out fairly clearly the degree of co-operation which authorities should seek. Good will is undoubtedly essential in implementing the provisions of the Bill, and if no harm is done by inserting these words somewhere in the Bill I seriously counsel the Minister to consider whether they could not be inserted somewhere else.
I do not want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but some speeches made by hon. Members on the Government benches reminded me of the ones they made when they were in Opposition. I was beginning to wonder whether they were practising for the next time they would be in Opposition.. I hope that the Minister will consider whether these words, or something similar, could be woven into the Bill in the appropriate place.

Mr. G. Campbell: The Minister has misunderstood one point about the purpose of the Amendment. We recognise that there are procedures in later Clauses concerning access agreements and access orders in respect of which consultations with certain people will take place. But those consultations will take place at a later stage. We believe that at this point the observations of owners and occupiers would be helpful to local planning authorities and, where relevant, to the Commission.
Clause 12 deals with the stage at which lists containing areas of open land are being compiled and maps are being drawn up. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) pointed out that under Clause 10 the land in question may be moor, heath, hill, woodland, and so on and, as the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) pointed out, there may be reasons which only the owners and occupiers would know of which would influence the choice of land acquired.
An owner or occupier may have a plan to plant trees on a piece of open heath, in which case in a short time a lot of young trees could be growing on the

land, with the necessary fencing provided against rabbits. That would affect the decision whether the land should be used, and whether there should be access to it.
I was in the House recently when we dealt with the Protection of Birds Bill. We gave considerable attention to the question of several rare birds which nest in Scotland and the desirability of making sure that they were not disturbed, while also allowing the general public to enjoy seeing them. Information of this kind may be known only to the owner or occupier. For instance, the red-necked phalarope nests in Sutherland, but it is easily disturbed and then deserts its nest, and that is a tragedy. It is this kind of information—covering questions of safety and future plans of owners and occupiers—of which local planning authorities might not know until they were thinking in terms of taking action.
That is why we feel that the observations of owners and occupiers at this stage could be useful. If we leave this Clause to be dealt with later it might be difficult to take action because part of the land in question was to be used for something which would make access undesirable. Such a question would better be considered at the earlier stage.
In Committee the Minister said that local planning authorities would consult owner-occupiers at this stage. Today he has been careful about what he said.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I said "in all appropriate cases".

Mr. Campbell: The Minister is now qualifying what he said. He cannot give a general assurance that owners or occupiers at the stage visualised in the Clause would all be consulted, but he hopes that most of them would. We think that this is a pity, because the Amendment would have provided that local planning authorities, when drawing up these lists and making these maps, would consult owners and occupiers. We are sorry that the Government cannot accept the Amendment because this difference remains between us, even though the intention of hon. Members on both sides of the House is the same.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 13.—(ACCESS AGREEMENTS.)

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move, Amendment No. 20, in page 12, line 1, at the beginning to insert
Subject to the provisions of subsection (8) below,".

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It would be convenient to discuss Amendment No. 21 at the same time.

Dr. Mabon: This is a paving Amendment, for Amendment No. 21. The Crofters Commission has suggested the substance of these two Amendments. Those who are acquainted with the work of the Crofters Commission know that certain common grazings have more than 50 shareholders, and negotiations with each individual crofter could prove difficult and lengthy. The benefit of treating with one body is obvious, and fortunately the common grazings committee is available.
At the same time, we must provide adequate safeguards for the rights of the individual crofters, and this we have done by making the consent of the majority of the crofters ordinarily resident in a township a prerequisite for the exercise by the Common Grazings Committee of the power to enter into an access agreement.
We have a precedent in Section 25 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act, 1955, which makes the same consent necessary for the exercise by a common grazing committee of its power to carry out works for the improvement of common grazings or the fixed equipment required in connection with them. Since we are all not equally familiar with crofting legislation, to put it modestly, I should say that a common grazings committee is normally appointed by the crofters concerned, although if they fail to do so, the Crofters Commission has the power to appoint. As well as having the duty of carrying out improvement works, to which I have referred, grazings committees are required to maintain the grazings and related equipment and to make and administer regulations for the management and use of common grazings. I am glad that the Crofters Commission has given a warm welcome to this Bill, describing it as:
A forward looking Measure which can confer great benefits on both city dwellers and rural dwellers.
It has come forward to add constructively the suggestions for improving the Bill

and the Government have readily accepted them. I put them forward for the House's consideration and commend them to every hon. Member.

Mr. Stodart: The Minister of State is taking a very great risk, a surprising risk, after one all-night sitting, in introducing a Measure about crofting. Perhaps it is in the knowledge that the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) is not present, because I seem to remember speeches of a considerable length on the subject of crofting, during the very early hours of the morning. I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman two questions. On the face of it, from the Amendment, every crofter in a township can have a say in making the agreements which have to do only with those who have a share in the common grazings—the people Who are ordinarily resident. That was at one time people who live within two miles of the crofts, and was subsequently changed, in the 1966 Act, to within 10 miles of the crofts.
Do all crofters in a township have a share in the grazings? I should have thought not, but I do not profess to be highly versed in crofting legislation. Section 24 of the 1955 Act starts:
The crofters who share in a common grazing may …
and then it goes on to say that they shall appoint a grazings committee. That would imply that there are crofters who do not share in the common grazings. If I am right, I am not clear why those who are ordinarily resident and therefore live possibly 10 miles away from their croft, who do not share in the grazings, have any say in this matter, because in the Clause they are certainly brought in.
My second point is one of information. Presumably the payment in consideration of making the agreement means either a rent for the access, payable regularly, or a capital sum. It is to be paid to the grazing committee by the local planning authority and the committee has either to divide it among the crofters who share in the grazings or, again if the majority of these ordinary resident crofters agree, as well as the Commission, the committee can spend it on the grazings, or on the fences which have to do with it. Is the decision as to which of these alternatives is to be used, to be left to the grazings committee? This is not entirely clear in


the Clause. On the other hand, can the local planning authority express a view and would the committee have to follow that view? Could the local planning authority say that it wanted the committee to use the money in a particular way, or is that a matter solely for the grazings committee?
On what basis is the proportion of the crofters rights determined for distribution? This is referred to, this share-out in the Clause. Is it on the acreage that a person has, or on the number of beasts he owns? Is the person who is farming his croft well, and carrying more beasts to the acre, to get more from the share-out than others?

5.45 p.m.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: We are following the precedent set out in Section 25. The hon. Gentleman is right in that this implies, and it is true, that not necessarily all crofters share in the common grazings. The decision as to how any proceeds, if I may call them that, consequent upon an access agreement, should be shared out, on a revenue or capital basis, is a matter for the common grazings committee.
All its procedures and decisions are to some extent governed by the Crofters Commission, so that if any croft shareholder, or person who is not directly a shareholder, thinks that he has a consequential interest in this, he can raise the matter with the Crofters Commission. The share-out would be determined by the number of shareholders of the respective agreements that there are within the particular and peculiar circumstances of the township.
Far be it from me to go into a lengthy argument about this and to praise the previous administration for any of their work, but in all fairness I must confess that the 1955 Crofters Act was a good Act, and Section 25 seems to be an eminently sensible one, which has worked well. It is reasonable that we should follow that precedent in this regard and I would commend this to the House.

Mr. Willis: Can my hon. Friend help me on a point which has interested me? I understand that the Forestry Commission has just made a similar arrangement with crofting township grazing committees, to acquire land, and the money that is paid is used for the benefit of the

grazing that is left. As far as I know, that does not require any legislation. Why can an arrangement of this kind be made in the case of the Forestry Commission without legislation, and yet legislation is necessary where the Countryside Commission requires land for access?

Dr. Dickson Mabon: Without notice I cannot give a reference to the powers, either in the Crofters Act or in the Forestry Commission Act governing this, but I am assured that we certainly could not proceed under the Crofters Acts alone in this regard. We would have to make a specific provision in this Bill if we wanted to let local planning authorities, or the Commission come to an agreement with the common grazings committee in this way. I am sorry that I cannot be more specific. My right hon. Friend has made a very good point on the other matter, and if he does not mind I will look into this and let him have a note as to what Statute the Forestry Commission have proceeded under in this regard.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: No. 21, in page 12, line 10, at end insert:
(8) A grazings committee appointed under section 24 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 may, with the consent of a majority of the crofters ordinarily resident in the township, enter into an access agreement in relation to any part of the common grazings and may agree to the revocation or variation of any such agreement, and such agreement, revocation or variation shall be binding upon all the crofters who share in the common grazings and upon their successors.
(9) Where any agreement referred to in the last foregoing subsection contains a provision for the making of a payment under subsection (2) above, the payment shall be made to the grazings committee and shall be applied by them—

(a) in the case of a payment in consideration of the making of the agreement, either by division among the crofters who share in the common grazings in proportion to their respective rights therein or, with the consent of a majority of the crofters ordinarily resident in the township and with the approval of the Crofters Commission, in carrying out works for the improvement of the common grazings or the fixed equipment required in connection therewith;
(b) in the case of a payment in respect of expenditure incurred in consequence of the agreement, by defraying or contributing towards that expenditure.

(10) In this section 'crofter' has the meaning assigned to it by section 3 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 as read with section 15(6) of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1961.—[Dr. Dickson Mabon.]

Clause 14.—(ACCESS ORDERS.)

Mr. Monro: I beg to move, Amendment No. 22, in page 12, line 26, at the end to insert:
Before submitting an access order to the Secretary of State, a local planning authority shall consider the extent to which access is available by means of public paths or rights of way over any land which the authority proposes should be comprised in the order, and a report on such access facilities shall be attached to the order when it is submitted to the Secretary of State. If the Secretary of State is satisfied that there are adequate access facilities by means of public paths or rights of way, he shall not confirm the order.
We are still on the third Clause dealing with access orders and agreements. There is some opinion in Scotland, certainly in the Landowners' Federation, that where there is already access to the countryside through public footpaths and rights of way, there is no need to bring in an order or even to make an order. It may be that that is unlikely to happen because where there is good access the local planning authority may not deem it necessary even to negotiate an agreement. But the view is held strongly that where these circumstances appertain, there should be no legal need to bring in an order or an access agreement, and that if the matter is taken to the Secretary of State for confirmation he should have full information about the footpaths and rights of way which already exist in the area prescribed in a possible order. The Amendment speaks for itself.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I thought that perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) would speak on this Amendment. While I regard the Amendment as unnecessary because the common sense of the local planning authorities is bound to prevail, I can see a point in the question about public rights of way, which is an issue, particularly in Scotland and particularly at present. Clause 12(2,b) as it stands already adequately imposes a duty on the local planning authority. It would seem to me strange if the local planning authority wanted to go to all the trouble and possible expense of making an access order or agreement if all that they wanted was public access by a right of way or public footpath. The local planning authority

might feel that there ought to be more than a public footpath or right of way and that it should be made up in a much more substantial way. They might desire the combination of two kinds of access, with a public path to part of the farm—

Mr. Stodart: Primrose Wood.

Dr. Mabon: I would rather not be taken there again, in view of our earlier discussion.
It may be that they wanted a public path in the first instance on arable land and simply free access to a higher area of land above the arable farm land. It is a matter of good sense which we should leave to the local planning authority for them to decide how they want to proceed and whether they want to go to the expense of being open to pay compensation, which they will have to justify fully in any proposed order to the Secretary of State before he will confirm it.
What the hon. Member seeks is sensible and to some extent it is bound to depend on the circumstances, but this is a rather heavy-handed method. Writing this procedure into the Bill might be otiose in character. I do not dissent from the principle, but I disagree that we should put it into the Bill, and I appeal to the hon. Member not to press it.

Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend the Minister of State thought that I might intervene in the debate. Perhaps I should apologise for intervening after he has spoken.
I am not against this idea, which I am sure is genuine, but I have had the experience more than once of trying to go over what I considered were rights of way only to find it very difficult to traverse those rights of way. I recall seeing a big notice at one point, put up by the Rights of Way Society, stating "Right of Way" and pointing out the right of way. A little further up the right of way there was another big notice, "Trespassers will be prosecuted". I followed that right of way, but it is not always easy to do so.
My right hon. Friend ought always to be very careful that these rights of way are not just paper rights of way, marks on a map, which have long since ceased to be open. If this question arises and the argument is that there are adequate rights of way, I take it that he will ensure that


the rights of way are genuine and adequate. On a previous occasion I expressed some fear that existing rights of way might be lost in opening up less accessible routes to open country. I still have that fear. But I wish to emphasise that a right of way on paper is not always a right of way in fact. I hope that that point will be kept very much in mind.

Mr. W. Baxter: The Minister of State agrees that the principle in the Amendment is sound and reasonable but thinks it unnecessary to put it into the Bill. I question that. Indeed, I go further and say that it would be well to put it into the Bill even by virtue of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson). Over the years my hon. Friend has to some extent been inhibited in going over land throughout Scotland because of notices stating that trespassers will be prosecuted. In fact, trespassers are not prosecuted in Scotland unless they do material damage. The law of trespass in Scotland permits one to trespass over any field in Scotland and any moorland by virtue of right. It is only when one is doing damage to property when trespassing over that land that one can be prosecuted.

Mr. Lawson: I was speaking of a notice put there for a particular purpose. My hon. Friend will not dispute that such notices are to be seen in Scotland.

Mr. Baxter: The purpose of putting up a notice is to deter people from doing the damage which they certainly can do. No one wants to prosecute, because of the cost involved, and one sometimes, therefore, puts up a notice stating, "Trespassers will be prosecuted", or "Rubbish shall not be dumped here". The law stipulates that rubbish shall not be dumped here, there and everywhere, because it is against the law to do so, but sometimes one puts up these notices to draw attention to the fact that rubbish shall not be dumped in a particular place. In any event, even without the notice, people could be prosecuted for dumping rubbish. Notices have been put up throughout Scotland that trespassers will be prosecuted but the law of Scotland does not permit them to be prosecuted.
In open spaces, farms and land around industrial areas, there have been a con-

siderable number of rights of way which have been established over the years and which should be conserved and preserved for the public. The purpose of the Amendment is to try to keep under control the number of accesses into those open spaces where, when all is said and done, many sheep and cattle will still be permitted to graze. The more accesses there are, the greater the difficulty of controlling sheep and cattle straying on to the public highway.
There is a school of thought in the House that to permit sheep and cattle to stray on to the public highway should be an offence. At present it is not an offence. Sheep and cattle have priority over vehicular traffic. But I remind hon. Members that we are legislating for the future and that the more accesses there are, the more difficult it is to control the livestock.
The Amendment does not prohibit the planning committee from putting the will of the Commission into operation about an open space. It simply provides that when the order goes to the Secretary of State for approval, there should be a recommendation that he should also see the other point of view. The decision should rest with the Secretary of State for Scotland. That is not wrong. It is right that the Secretary of State, answerable to Parliament from time to time, should be able to control certain planning actions of local authorities in the area.
I would only give this counsel. It is wrong to imagine that every Committee of this House is sensible. It is wrong to imagine that all the planning committees of all the local authorities in Scotland are sensible planning committees, and that they never err. When recommendations go to the Secretary of State, and the opposite point of view has been put in a memorandum, the Secretary of State can either approve or reject them. I think that, in the circumstances, the Amendment is reasonable.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. Dempsey: Is the Minister satisfied that a right of way is an effective access to open land or open places on any of the Commission's property? A right of way has always proved a very difficult project. It is naïve to say that anyone who trespasses on what he thinks is a right of


way is not committing an offence. He is, and he can be dealt with in the local court. The trouble is usually not the trespass but the trampling down of growing grass. It must therefore be understood that there is considerable additional difficulty in respect of rights of way and open access. A farmer will sometimes put up a barricade across a path and say that it was never a right of way and never shall be.
If I were trying to enter the Commission's property, I would find myself involved in tremendous legal jargon and procedural difficulty. I should probably have to dig up people who lived in the district in 1912, and take them to court to prove that they walked on the particular pathway in that year and so established a right of way. That would prove a great problem, but I know that local authorities have had to do that sort of thing on a number of occasions in order to establish a right of way. Local individuals find themselves financially restricted, so the local authorities have had to take the necessary action.
Is the Minister of State aware of the difficulty of using rights of way as means of access to the Commission's property? I would prefer him to establish official accesses to the Commission's open spaces—indisputable accesses which could not be denied at local level or in court. I ask my hon. Friend to apply his mind to this problem, because it is causing a good deal of embarrassment in many parts of Scotland at present. The present position has caused considerable concern. It has sometimes ended in fisticuffs in an open field, with the farmer saying that it is not a right of way and the public saying that it is.
This Bill will soon become an Act of Parliament, and it would be very invidious if some people getting the benefits of a 1967 Act of Parliament found that they only had to jump over a hedge to establish a right of way to Commission property. Does the Minister of State realise that scarcely a year passes but we read in the Press of this sort of thing occurring? I hope that he will establish beyond a shadow of doubt that if there is access to the Commission's property it is undeniable and free access for the people who wish to use it.

Mr. Stodart: Would not the hon. Gentleman give further thought to this point? With great respect, I think that he is perhaps remarking a little too often that common sense will prevail. Common sense is not a commodity that is either gifted or distributed to the extent of 100 per cent. There is always a minority—and it may be some time, alas, before an Administration like the Government before the last in back in power. Until then, we have to drag on and make the best of it.
The Minister of State will recall considerable discussion in Committee about what constituted open country, livestock rearing land, and so on. Today, we have deliberately not attempted to go over that ground again, but I must say that land subject to access orders includes land which either is or gives access to open country; it need not itself be open country. We can loosely describe open country as being the hills, although it also includes cliffs, the foreshores, and so forth.
We can have a farm that is itself excepted land but which lies next door to land which is in open country, so that the farm that is excepted land must be able to give access. It is then, presumably, liable to having an access order served on it if agreement fails. That kind of farm may have a lot of cultivated land—I do not want to labour a point that was made in Committee—and it may also perfectly possibly already have through it either a public path or right of way. The purpose of the Amendment is to ensure that the existence of the path or right of way is taken into account before any access order is confirmed.
I believe that I won the agreement of the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) when I said that it is possible—indeed, not possible but inevitable—that even by walking up the side of a cultivated field one does some damage. That is quite inevitable, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that one should not do it if it is possible not to do so.
An access order can be used only if attempts at agreement have failed. It is perfectly possible for the occupier of a farm and the local planning authority to fall out on no other ground than the suitability or adequacy of an existing path. The owner might say, "That is good


enough," while the local planning authority might say, "It is not wide enough More people will use it than you imagine." In such a case it would be advisable, and this is all that the Amendment seeks to do, to have the existence of a path or right of way taken into consideration by the Secretary of State before he confirmed the order. He should be the final arbiter. A dispute could arise perfectly easily.
I am grateful to the Minister—I have seen that look of rapt attention on his face as I have spoken and I hope that he has been taking it in. So far, he has merely said that he does not think that the Amendment is necessary. He accepts the principle, but say that there is no likelihood of such a thing happening. I strongly commend him to win a bit of good will by putting these words into the Bill.
I know that he can shut me down by saying that to do so would lengthen the Bill. I do not approve of superficial words, but occasionally they can be useful, if only for winning a certain amount of good will. Quite apart from good will, there could be an occasion on which the arbitration of the Secretary of State could be of great value. I therefore hope that the Minister will think again.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I should like to do that, but, having heard the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Coat-bridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey), I think that if we included this it would be open not only to the rewarding possibility of getting good will but also to the disappointing circumstances of being terribly badly misunderstood. This is a matter of rights of way—I will not use the phrase, "digging up those of 1912" to prove it—

Mr. Dempsey: I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate that I am a man of metaphors.

Dr. Mabon: Yes, but sometimes the argument might be good as well, and it is a good argument which my hon. Friend has put forward today. He spoke about the Scottish Rights of Way Society, which is very anxious that we should copy the English Statutes and have a long legal search for rights of way which might have existed over the years. We have tried to establish rights of way which are in current, or will be in

prospective, use as well as new rights of way established by access agreements.
Clause 46(1) says:
It shall be the duty of a local planning authority to assert, protect and keep open and free from obstruction or encroachment any public right of way …
Rights of way are important, but we are talking about a balance of argument and it is said that if there are rights of way, ought there to be access agreements or orders? There may be circumstances where there are not only rights of way but there have to be access orders or agreements as well.
I do not like writing into a Bill something which is unnecessary and which might lead to misconstruction. That it is unnecessary is a good argument for rejecting the proposal, because it is a mistake to put into a Bill more things unnecessarily, and goodness knows this is a long enough Bill already. But it is also open to misconstruction. I accept that there are circumstances where this problem might arise, but if the Secretary of State acts in the way in which we expect him to act, it will not be necessary always to have this provision. It may be a rather heavy chariot to get home an access agreement or an order to the Secretary of State. I appeal to the House not to make this Amendment but to accept that we agree with the spirit of it and that it would be wrong to put it into the Bill.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 22.—(CLAIMS FOR COMPENSATION AND INTEREST.)

Amendment made: No. 23, in page 20, line 12, after 'depreciation', insert:
'or the disturbance in the enjoyment'.—[Dr. Dickson Mabon.]

Clause 23.—(PAYMENTS ON ACCOUNT IN SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES.)

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Stodart: I beg to move Amendment No. 24, in page 21, line 9, after 'circumstances', to insert:
'or where annual outlays have properly been made'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this Amendment we can discuss Amendment No. 25, in line 10, after 'exist', insert:
'or annual outlays have properly been made'.

Mr. Stodart: I hope the Minister of State does not think that I am pressing him too hard on this Clause. He was kind enough to accept an Amendment which I moved in Committee to remove the second qualification to what we might describe as payments on account when undue hardship was involved. I pointed out that special circumstances might justify payment at once when undue hardship would be caused by their being held back for five years. The hon. Gentleman's generosity is so rare that when one receives it it lasts for quite a long time. I am, therefore, still grateful as I bask in the memory of having an Amendment accepted in Committee.
What I now have in mind are regular payments for which an occupier will be quite definitely entitled to compensation. Where these payments are regular and fairly substantial, they should be paid back. In Committee the hon. Gentleman referred to the sort of things which would qualify, insurance premiums for occupiers' liability as to stock, clearing up litter and the possibility of a crop having been planted and, because an access order was made, the farmer not being able to harvest it. I should think the last example would be very unlikely. I hope that the cost of clearing litter would decline as time goes on and would not constitute a very heavy burden.
Insurance premiums paid once a year may be quite substantial. I do not know to what extent it would be advisable to take out insurance cover, but the courts are awarding very high damages in cases of serious accidents. A general cover of up to £100,000 on a farm costs an annual premium of £14. Then there is the obvious risk of damage to forestry plantations. It is immensely difficult to put a specific figure on this because premiums for insurance against fire damage to forestry vary according to the type of trees, the age of the plantation and other factors.
Figures I have received show that for 400 acres of forestry the premium of all types of wood of one year old is £8 per £100. At the other extreme, for trees of 25 years' old the average is £26 per £100. If we take an average mean of 15-year-old trees, the average premium for mixed hardwoods and softwoods is £18 per £100. That average of £18 for forestry plus £12 for the other

occupier's liability makes a total of £30. I do not think anyone would be prepared to quote for the possible damage to stock. The hon. Gentleman will remember my piteous story about my cows and the polythene bags. I have not found a quotation that would give complete cover for this, though I have no doubt it exists. Perhaps I have not been lucky in finding the right insurance company.
It seems to me that it would be very simple to have premiums of between £20 and £30 a year. If this is the case and if these are to be paid once a year and are to be subject to compensation or part compensation—the hon. Gentleman would not suggest that there should be 100 per cent. compensation for this—I would have thought that when we have regular payments of this kind there is a case to be argued for the occupier involved to be able to say, "I have paid out this money. May I have it back rather than wait five years and then collect something between £100 and £500?".
That is the purpose of the Amendment. It may be that the hon. Gentleman does not like the drafting, but, of course, he has got all the necessary equipment, skill and staff for proper drafting; we have not. I have expressed the intention behind the Amendment and I hope that he will look benevolently upon it.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I confess that I certainly do not like the drafting of this Amendment, but I have never used that as an argument against the Opposition. It imports in the Clause a degree of ambiguity. I do not know what the word "properly" is intended to mean. However, I do not use that as an argument against the Amendment.
I understand the principle of the Amendment, that there should be payments where annual outlays have been made. But not all outlays will necessarily be annual outlays. I am told by the legal luminaries that it would be difficult to prove that a cow died from eating a plastic bag. However, I will not go into that. Premiums might be covered, but other outlays which an occupier could incur as a result of an access order might not be covered. Some of these may not occur on an annual basis. There might even be an argument for saying that the occupier ought to be paid much more frequently than annually in


respect of some particular burden that may be imposed upon the land.
The basic argument here is that the Clause leaves discretion to the local planning authority and to the Secretary of State. The hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends, and certainly the National Farmers' Union, feel that we should write something in to limit or describe that discretion, although I am not certain what alternative to this Amendment is proposed. We are certainly willing to consider suggestions, but this Amendment is not adequate. We think it is still preferable to leave it to the discretion of the Secretary of State. The bona fides of the Secretary of State and myself are not in question, since the hon. Gentleman readily admitted that we gave him the major part of the Clause when we accepted his Amendment to strike out the requirement about undue hardship.
I am disappointed that the serpent of ingratitude has risen to strike me. After all, we accepted 19 Amendments and we promised to consider another 22. That is rather a lot out of a total of fewer than 100 which were moved by the Opposition. The Opposition had rather a good innings then. I will not call it a concession, but we certainly agreed to strike out the reference to undue hardship. I am very much in sympathy with the suggestion that we must make sure that payments are made when the circumstances are burdensome, but I do not think that this is the right way to do it. The hon. Gentleman is pressing me too hard.
Having conceded one part, I do not think that we should go on to incorporate this phrase
or where annual outlays have properly been made.
I am prepared to look at the suggestion and consider whether there is another phrase, although frankly. I doubt it. I think that it might be better to leave the matter to the complete discretion of the Secretary of State, thus leaving it as flexible as possible.

Mr. Stodart: As I am always hopeful that we may get another Amendment accepted before we finish these proceedings, I am going to hold out the olive branch and hope that this may help the hon. Gentleman. As he said that he will

look at this—no more than that—although he was not very optimistic, and that he will reconsider this suggestion, and recognising as I do that the drafting is less perfect than it should be, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 24.—(ACQUISITION BY LOCAL PLANNING AUTHORITIES OF LAND FOR PUBLIC ACCESS.)

Mr. Stodart: I beg to move Amendment No. 26, in page 21, line 28, to leave out 'expedient', and to insert 'necessary'.
This Amendment puts into formal terms a suggestion by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) in Committee. At that time he moved an Amendment of about six lines the purpose of which was to limit the powers of the local planning authority to acquire land compulsorily to cases where the authority had satisfied the Secretary of State that existing access was inadequate and agreement on what was wanted was impossible.
The hon. Gentleman then accepted the principle of the Amendment, but he did not like the drafting and thought it was far too long. My hon. and learned Friend suggested the word "necessary" and the hon. Gentleman said with some reservations that he would consider it. Expediency does not imply a condition of last resort. It is a case of agreement completely failing before compulsion is used. I think that the word "necessary" implies last resort and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept this Amendment

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I will not say that this is a case of angels dancing on a pinhead, although it is getting close to it. One order has been used under the English National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, which we do not have in Scotland. As I have said before, I hope that we in Scotland will use these orders at half that rate—one in 36 years. Therefore, we do not visualise many Orders coming forward, and perhaps in that sense the matter is academic.
However, I have consulted some of my advisers, and I would point out that the local planning authority has to prove, by paragraph (a) of this subsection, that public access to a piece of land is requisite—a delightful word—and, in


paragraph (b), that it was expedient. I agree that the word "expedient" can have a slightly sinister flavour about it, but it has the merit that not all matters which are necessary are in themselves the right way of doing it. There is an element in an expedient matter which certainly contains the meaning of necessary, but is nevertheless a better way of doing it.
I do not know whether I have expressed that too clearly. I think that I said it better in Committee. My first reaction was that expediency had an added virtue about it, not being in a hair-splitting way absolutely necessary; but, on the other hand, given that it is requisite for the public use, it might be better to leave it as expedient.
I have had this argument for too long now among my advisers, and I have discussed it with the Secretary of State several times. On balance, I am sure that we would do better to keep the Clause as it is, with the word "expedient". I would like to agree and accept the word "necessary", as the hon. Gentleman suggests, but, in the remote circumstances of our having an order, it is conceivable that the word "necessary" might not just fit. There might be a better way of doing it, and for that matter, most of the parties might agree to that as well. I ask hon. Members to leave the Clause as it is.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: I quite understand that the Minister of State has studied this matter for many weeks and is, perhaps, a little tired of it. I have the advantage of bringing a fresh mind to the question, not having been a member of the Committee.
I am disturbed by the Minister's argument. As I read it, the present wording of the Clause gives wide powers to the local planning authority, powers which, I suggest, are too wide. If the local planning authority considers that it is requisite that the public should have access to a piece of land, then, having established requisiteness—if that be the word—it has power, subject only to the meaning of the word "expedient", to acquire the land compulsorily.
The word "expedient" does not define narrowly enough the circumstances in

which a compulsory purchase order should be made, and I agree entirely with the argument just put by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart).
The Minister of State used dangerously loose words when he said that he would hope that there would not be many Orders of this kind, he did not visualise many being made, or words to that effect. This is not good enough when we are considering a Clause which raises the possibility of compulsory purchase in such wide terms. I do not understand why the Minister does not accept the much more appropriate word "necessary". It would be far better for the local planning authority to have to prove necessity than to have to prove expediency.
Expediency can be a matter of mere convenience for the local planning authority. If it is convenient for the planning authority to take over land, it can then plead expediency, and a compulsory purchase order would be covered by the Clause. I hope that the Minister will look at the question again. The Clause is far too widely drawn as it stands.

Mr. Lawson: It seems to me that the Opposition are trying to nail the planning authority down. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) has spoken of this being the last resort. To revert to what may be seen almost as a hobby-horse of mine, I take the case when there is an argument about access to a hillside being made available to the public—we are concerned here with the public—and there are certain relatively easy routes and certain difficult routes to that hillside. There is a fairly easy way through a piece of land, but the owner or occupier is in no circumstances prepared to allow the public to traverse that piece of land or to enter into any sort of agreement.
The planning authority, with the Commission behind it, and, eventually, the Secretary of State, are compelled to see what can be done, all the arguments and the attempts to persuade having failed. There is a difficult way, perhaps a longer way, perhaps almost inaccessible though not quite. It may be virtually inaccessible for elderly people, it may be relatively dangerous, but it is still true that access to the hillside can be gained by that way.
The local planning authority is put in an exceedingly difficult position. There is an easy and sensible route, and the argument is that that route should be followed. But it cannot argue that it is "necessary", which in this case, I take it, means essential. Let us take it further. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the last resort. The other route is available, but it is available only at considerable difficulty.
We are trying here to serve a public purpose, to make available or accessible what should, surely, be our natural heritage, the open country. In the example which I have cited, the planning authority, trying to serve that public purpose, not to fill anyone's pocket, will find its position made as difficult as it is possible to make it in providing access to the open hillside. This is what hon. Members opposite are seeking to do, in effect. I do not know whether they really want to take it that far, but that is how it seems to me.
If we retain the word "expedient" here, the meaning will be that, from a sensible point of view, taking into account all possible accesses, taking into account the interests of the owner or occupier of the land, the sensible and reasonable and comparatively easy way ought to be taken. That would he covered by the word "expedient". If, on the other hand, the authority has to prove that it is necessary that it be that way and no other, its position could be virtually impossible.
Hon. Members opposite have cooperated very well thus far. I ask them to realise that it is very much in their interests not to press the point. Taking them as, broadly, representative of the country, of the farming and land interests, and taking hon. Members on this side as more the representatives of the towns and townspeople, I ask them to accept that agreement on this point is very much in their interests as well as ours and that we should have good will here. If they stick on this point, they will not be showing the good will which they have shown up to the present.
The word "expedient" provides all that can reasonably be expected from both sides in this case, and I hope that the Amendment will not be pressed.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 27.—(PROVISIONS AS TO DANGER AREAS.)

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 27, in page 24, line 24, at the end to insert:
(5) The provisions of the last foregoing subsection shall apply to the Secretary of State as respects land for the time being held by him under section 25 above as they apply to a local planning authority as respects land held by them.
This is a drafting Amendment to ensure that the Secretary of State has the same powers as the local planning authority to take such steps as may be necessary to protect the public from danger on any land which he himself may acquire for public access.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 42.—(VARIATION OF APPROVED PROPOSALS.)

Mr. G. Campbell: I beg to move Amendment No. 28, in page 34, line 40, after the second 'time' to insert:
'after consulting the owners and occupiers of the land through which the route passes'.
In Committee, the Minister said that this Amendment was worthy of further consideration, and he asked for time. When discussing Clause 40, on the subject of long-distance routes, the Government assured us that owners and occupiers would be consulted by the Countryside Commission when proposals came to be executed.
On this Clause, we are now dealing with variations of schemes which the Secretary of State has already approved. We are dealing, therefore, with variations of schemes after their original execution. That is why the problem arose which the Minister felt that he ought to consider further. We feel that it would improve the Bill to put it clearly into Clause 42 that there should be this consultation. I hope, therefore, that on this occasion we have given the Minister an opportunity to accept an Amendment.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I agree that, when we were arguing the position on Clause 39 in Committee, I drew a distinction between the broad planning stage, when what is involved is an outline proposal, and the implementation stage. I emphasised that, at the implementation stage, owners and occupiers must come into the picture. They will be consulted


by local planning authorities who have the duty to translate a proposal into public paths by negotiating agreements with them.
But, at the planning stage, it would not always be necessary for the Commission to consult individual owners and occupiers. The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) and his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) accepted that and were good enough to withdraw their Amendment, which was exploring the situation at that stage.
I also said that it might sometimes be an advantage if, in some instances, the Commission consulted at the proposal stage. This is on all-fours with our earlier discussions on Clause 12. I emphasised that there was nothing in the Bill to prevent it. I thought that these consultations would go ahead in certain circumstances.
When we come to apply these principles to Clause 39 it is clear that it deals with variations of proposals, but not with the implementation of the variations of proposals. What is not perhaps appreciated as a possibility is that a variation could involve a major change in a large part of a route, and it could be a major exercise. We have had some experience of this in England, but not in Scotland, and, therefore, we have to take lessons from our English friends in this regard.
If it were to be a major exercise of variation, following the reason which I adduced on Clause 39 and, earlier, on Clause 12, it would seem wrong to impose a duty on the Commission to consult all owners and occupiers statutorily who could be involved. I accept that, in the implementation stage, the local planning authority must do this in every circumstance, but it would be a duplication of work if, at the variation stage, we were to make it a statutory obligation on the Commission to consult everyone who might be involved in the variation, because it might transpire ultimately that what was the first, second or third proposal was not the one carried out by the local planning authority on behalf of the Commission to get this variation achieved.
It would be wrong to make this Amendment. It would be cumbersome, it would

duplicate work and it might even involve work being done and consultation carried out unnecessarily. I cannot believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite would want to impose that heavy burden on a Commission which will be hard-worked at the beginning, anyway.
I grasp the point of the Amendment, which is that owners and occupiers must be consulted before these matters are implemented. That is true in every circumstance. They must be consulted at the implementaiton stage, but it is wrong to put in these words at the proposal stage, with all the possible variations. We could not make this precise and definite Amendment now.

Mr. G. Campbell: The rubric to Clause 42 is "Variation of approved proposals." I agree that in the preparatory stages, consultation may not be necessary, but there does not seem to be anything in the Clause which indicates that the implementation stage of a variation of something already approved will include consultation.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: If the hon. Gentleman reads the whole of Clause 42—

Mr. Campbell: I have.

6.45 p.m.

Dr. Mabon: Then if he reads it again with a fresh mind, he will see that there are a great many reservations. The proposals having been approved by the Secretary of State, the Commission may from time to time—and here the hon. Gentleman wants to insert his Amendment—prepare and submit to the Secretary of State a report proposing any such variation. The Secretary of State may, for reasons arising from his original confirmation, disagree with the Commission. There is nothing in the Bill which derogates a local planning authority's access to the Secretary of State. It may come to the Secretary of State with its own version and say that it does not think that the Commission's suggestions about a variation are in order. It is very much a stage of discussion, where it might be a complete waste of time to go to owners and occupiers and might even create alarms and excursions among them which are quite unnecessary. The right time would be when a definite proposal was to be made.
The hon. Gentleman will recognise readily that, if a local planning authority comes forward with formal proposals as a result of Clause 42, it can unearth objections from an owner or occupier, because it wants to get these matters by agreement. I cannot exclude the possibility of orders being made, but I hope that we shall not make many, because that would be a negation of the spirit of the legislation. We cannot exclude the possibility. We may be driven to it, as the English are once in 18 years. In trying to seek agreement, something may be unearthed which is not known to the Commission, the Secretary of State or the local planning authority, in which case the Secretary of State would be told that the proposal was not possible.
What hon. Gentlemen opposite are after is sound, but this is not the right place to make it, because it would result in duplication, unnecessary work and cause vexatious inquiries.

Mr. Stodart: Then may we be told where is the right place to make it?

Dr. Mabon: The burden of my argument is that it is not necessary. Owners and occupiers must be consulted. I should be the first to commend to the House that we should make sure that that is so if hon. Gentlemen could point out to me that it is not so.

Mr. G. Campbell: There is a misunderstanding here. The Minister has pointed out that we propose this Amendment in subsection (1) at the stage where the Secretary of State may not approve all the proposals put forward, and that there could be some waste of time. I am with him in not wishing any such waste of time and energy to take place. It seems to me that an Amendment of this kind ought to appear in subsection (5), which is where the Secretary of State approves a variation and where the implementation of that variation will take place. At that implementation stage, there does not seem to be anything which obliges the Commission to take into account the views of owners and occupiers.
We have put down the Amendment moved in Committee, because the Minister invited us to do so. He suggested that we should let the Amendment "lie on the Notice Paper", so to speak. As a result, I did not seek to produce a better one, but simply reproduced it at

his invitation. I see from what he has now said, however, that our Amendment would probably be better in subsection (5). I follow his argument and, therefore, I would ask him to look at it again and see whether at the stage of implementation of a variation it is necessary to put in something of this kind.
Having heard what the hon. Gentleman has said about it being inappropriate in subsection (1), I hope that he will consider this before the Bill reaches another place in the light of what I have said, and, accordingly, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 44.—(PASTURING OF BULLS.)

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 29, in page 36, line 30, to leave out subsection (1) and to insert:
(1) No person shall, being the occupier of any field or enclosure through which there is a public right of way, permit any bull to be at large in such field or enclosure:
Provided that this section shall not apply to any bull which—

(a) does not exceed the age of 10 months; or
(b) is not of a recognised dairy breed and is at large in any field or enclosure in which cows or heifers are also at large.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) was not exaggerating when he said in Committee that I would emerge from it a wiser man, at least in matters of agriculture. I readily concede that that is so. Certainly we have had some interesting vignettes of life on a farm in East Lothian—I do not include Primrose Wood.
I made it clear in Committee that I was willing to accept any reasonable Amendment to the Clause, and I paid tribute to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) for his solo constructive efforts. The Amendment is the fruit of many hours of discussion between officials of the Scottish Development Department and the Department of Agriculture for Scotland and representatives of the National Farmers' Union of Scotland.
I am glad to say that the N.F.U., given the need which the Government see for a provision of this nature has, with one minor reservation, accepted the terms of the Amendment as reasonable in all the circumstances. It has made it very plain


that it strongly prefers the Amendment to any suggestion that local authorities should be empowered to make by-laws to control the pasturing of bulls on rights of way, and it is plain that a Clause in the Bill has the merit of securing uniformity in the law.
I also think that the Amendment takes account of all the points of substance, quite apart from the welcome suggestions of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West, which arose in Committee.
The N.F.U.'s reservation relates to our decision to reduce the age limit from 12 to 10 months. The Clause as drafted puts it at 12 months, but, as I have said, I have been learning fast about matters agricultural, and I am now convinced that 10 months is preferable. As the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West told us in Committee, and as my agricultural advisors have confirmed, a dairy bull of 11 months can be highly dangerous.
By law, bulls are required to be licensed at 10 months, notice having been given 28 days before. It is, therefore, an age which can readily be proved. Also, its choice as the licensing age is a fair indication that a bull of 10 months has at least reached his first maturity. I think that it is fair that we should ensure that he will not be awaiting unsuspecting members of the public on a public right of way.
The N.F.U. has asked whether, for the purposes of the Clause, an open hill is a field or an enclosure. The interpretation of statutes is a matter for the courts, but it is certainly not the Government's intention that "field or enclosure" should be construed to include open hill land. I am advised that the wording of the Clause is satisfactory on this point.
I think that we have now produced a workable Clause which incorporates the substance of the Study Group 9 recommendation without doing any damage to farming. I therefore commend the Amendment, on which we have worked hard and long, to the House.

Mr. James Davidson: I thank the Minister for his kind remarks, but I cannot think that the Amendment makes many improvements to the Clause. I still think that the Amendment which I tabled in Committee is possibly slightly better, but I shall not argue the point.
I agree that it is exceedingly difficult to frame an Amendment of this nature that takes into account all possibilities. However, it would be possible, under its terms, for a farmer who allowed an 11-month-old Aberdeen Angus bull to run with half a dozen bullocks or stots in a field adjacent to a right of way to be liable to a fine of £50, while a neighbouring farmer who allowed a dangerous dog to roam near a public right of way could not be liable to any penalties.
I therefore cannot regard the Amendment as perfect, but perhaps it is as near perfect as we can expect in the circumstances.

Sir John Gilmour: I wonder whether the Minister would widen the Amendment to say, "running with any cattle". This is not a throwback to what we debated in the middle of last night, which, in any case, does not apply to Scotland, but I think that it is plain that if the bull is out, and running with cows and heifers which are not in season, it might equally well be running with a bunch of stirks. I do not see why it should not be possible to use the words "running with any cattle" so as to meet the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson).

Mr. Rankin: I do not know very much about bulls, but perhaps my hon. Friend could tell me whether the term "any bull" includes a scrub bull. I have seen scrub bulls, and it seems to me that they are very harmless creatures, hardly entitled to be excluded from the common run of animals as any bull would be under the Amendment. I do not see that it is necessary to take special measures against them. If they are still to be found, as I think they are, they should be specifically excluded. If a scrub bull were amongst a crowd of cows or heifers, it would hardly be recognised as a bull.

Mr. Stodart: The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) have made the good practical point that the Minister might well substitute the word "cattle" for "cows". That would be perfectly feasible.
As the Minister said, it was originally the intention that no bull over 12 months could be kept in any field through which a right of way passed. I can remember saying in Committee that the three points for discussion were the question of what an enclosure was; the question of the bull's age; and the question of victimising him.
Under the Amendment, any bull under the age of 10 months can run in any field on his own. A beef bull with a couple of cows or heifers can be of any age. He will not he able to get away from women of his own kind without being debarred from seeing any woman at all. He will have a very rough time. The dairy bull over the age of 10 months will be restricted, no matter how polygamous he may be by instinct. He will not be allowed out at all.
I am not convinced of the value of the Amendment, in that it implies that a beef bull, provided that he has feminine company, is unattracted to the red rags with which the public is supposed to enrage him, provided that he has two cows or heifers with him. I think that some bulls with tempers are just as likely to lose them whether they have cows with them or not. In any case, some cows have worse tempers than bulls, but they will he allowed to run in a field with a right of way. Therefore, I think that the Amendment is a piece of window-dressing.
But the Minister has tried his best to help. It was a very difficult Clause to draft. Because of that, we did not put down any constructive Amendments. Our only Amendment was the thoroughly destructive one of leaving out the Clause altogether.
7.0 p.m.
However, as I explained to the hon. Gentleman, the field was so large and the time for discussion of the Bill so short that by the time we had gone through ages and types and kinds of bull—cows, heifers, stots or stirks—we could have taken un a great deal of time, and although it would have been the greatest good fun to have had the hon. Gentleman really knowing all about agriculture and bovine law, we felt that our responsibility was such that we ought not so to do. There is also the point that the hon. Gentleman has succeeded in persuading

the N.F.U., and that is a remarkable achievement.
But the most important thing that the Minister said—I attach great importance to it—was his assurance about enclosures as applied to hill country, the fact that, although it would be for the courts in due course to interpret the Statute, it is the view of the Government—it would certainly be our view—that this should not be applied to hill country, where I suppose land is technically an enclosure although the enclosures may be miles back and apart from one another.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not think that I have been in the least crabby or grudging about this. He has done something considerable in getting agreement on the content of the Clause from the N.F.U. However, from the practical point of view I still think that the Amendment has many flaws.

Mr. MacArthur: I am a little worried when reading the new subsection, as I was when I read the original Bill, to see the word "permit". Will the Minister of State tell us what this means? The intent of the subsection is clear, that farmers must be careful about where they put their bulls and must not permit a bull to be at large in a field or enclosure through which a public right of way passes.
But what is the position if the bull breaks out of the field or enclosure and thus finds itself on the piece of land through which a right of way passes? In a situation of that kind, clearly the farmer has not "permitted" the bull to break out of the field. The bull has decided, for one reason or another, to break out of the field itself. The farmer may have taken every reasonable precaution to restrain it and to retain it in the field or enclosure.
What would be the situation if the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson), off to his heritage in the hills, were to stop and wave a red tie at a bull in a field and this in some way provoked the bull to retaliatory action? The bull might think it necessary, or more likely expedient, to speed the hon. Member on his way, and in doing this could break out of the field or enclosure and interfere with the hon. Gentleman on the public right of way. I think that there is a point here for clarification.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I think one might say that there are two points in the Clause and a lot of bull in between. The hon. Gentleman's illustration is a matter of legal argument. I do not think that it would come within the Clause. However, if the bull did damage to my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) I think that the farmer would be open to civil damages against him under the Occupiers' Liability (Scotland) Act, 1960. But I speak entirely "off the cuff". In these circumstances, I do not think that Clause 44 would apply at all were the farmer in breach of Statute, and I think he would be fined. I cannot remember all the circumstances, but I do not think these matters arise.
With regard to dogs, byelaws can be made by local authorities to deal with other animals. The reason why we have chosen in Statute to take bulls is that the Countryside Study Group originally put this to us and we thought that we ought to do it. When I put it to the N.F.U. that the alternative to deleting Clause 44—at the time not knowing all about scrub bulls, dairy bulls, beef bulls and the rest, I thought the best thing was to chuck the Clause out altogether—was to have power by byelaws to control the pasturing of bulls, the N.F.U. made its decision absolutely clear and was in no doubt that it was against the idea of variable byelaws in different parts of the country and preferred a clean-cut Clause dealing with the pasturing of bulls. That is why we reached such an agreement with the N.F.U.
I do not deny that from an agricultural point of view there may be variants of this, though my mind boggles at the thought of another long discussion about the possibilities of running with cattle, scrub bulls, and so on. Incidentally, I am told that beef bulls and dual purpose bulls are very much less dangerous than dairy breeds. I bow to the experts in these matters, not knowing much about it myself.
At the moment, I commend the Amendment to the House as one agreed between the N.F.U. in Scotland and the Government. If in another place or in some other way we can come to some other arrangement, by all means let us do it, but it will have to be a constructive suggestion. I shall bear in mind the points mentioned in the debate, and we

will see how we get on when the matter is discussed elsewhere, where there will be many farmers wanting to put their point of view. I am obliged to the House for agreeing that this is a fair attempt to get an agreement acceptable to most of the people involved.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 49.—(CAMPING AND CARAVAN SITES.)

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 30, in page 40, line 39, at the end to insert "or the next following".
This Amendment is proposed in consequence of the decision taken by the Scottish Standing Committee that the power under Clause 50 to provide accommodation, meals and refreshments should be extended to district councils. It ensures that in exercising these powers district councils will not be inhibited by the 1s. in the £ rate limitation on district council expenditure.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause No. 54.—(BYELAWS.)

Mr. Stodart: I beg to move Amendment No. 31, in page 43, line 2, to leave out from "authority" to "shall" in line 3.
I was interested to hear the Minister of State just now describe the objections of the N.F.U. to the proposal that byelaws might be made to deal with hulls. He said that the N.F.U. was very keen that there should be no variable byelaws in different parts of the country.
The object of the Amendment is to try to ensure that byelaws which affect people in the countryside shall have a reasonable degree of consistency about them. I think that there could be very different interpretations of what under Clause 54(1) constitutes undue interference with the enjoyment of the countryside by "other people". Therefore, it seems sensible to us that the Commission should be able to give advice with a view to getting a consistent pattern of byelaws throughout the countryside. Under the Clause, they can do so, and will have to do so where Clause 9 special areas are involved. That is a thoroughly sound idea and the Amendment would extend this


effort towards consistency to every local planning authority.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I regret that I have not had the opportunity to consult the local authority associations about the Amendment. Perhaps the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) has, however, missed Clause 3(e) where there is the duty of the Commission.
to advise the Secretary of State or any other Minister or any public body on such matters relating to the functions of the Commission as he or they may refer to the Commission or as the Commission may think fit.
In other words, there will be a channel of communication in the Statute whereby my right hon. Friend, who will have to approve every byelaw will be free to refer a byelaw to the Commission and to ask its advice. Thus, there already is a central authority in my right hon. Friend to deal with byelaws and he can have recourse to the Commission.
The Amendment would make it obligatory that, in all cases, byelaws would go to the Commission. I agree that we should have these circumstances in areas of special planning control. I will not quote Gilbert and Sullivan, but when everyone is somebody, then nobody is anybody. If we were to make general provisions of the kind we have for the special area controls, they would either tend to be taken sincerely, which would need an enormous burden of work on the Commission, or might not be regarded seriously, which would be wrong for the hon. Gentleman's intention.
It would be wrong to rule that, in all cases, byelaws must go to the Commission. It is right that my right hon. Friend should have power to refer them to the Commission if he thinks fit. He can also ask for a specific matter to go to the Commission—for example, byelaws concerning dogs. It might be desirable to have model byelaws about dogs. Indeed, we hope that the Commission will produce a set of model byelaws for the advice of local planning authorities. But, apart from very common circumstances like bulls, where we have been asked specifically to legislate, there are local circumstances and variations which make it desirable that local byelaws should be made.
The man in St. Andrew's House does not always know best. It would be wrong to inject this provision into the Bill, par-

ticularly as we have in fact met the main point involved by Clause 3(e). I suggest we should leave it at that.

Mr. Stodart: I confess that I had overlooked Clause 3(e). Perhaps we have got so far from it. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his reminder and, in view of what he has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 77.—(INTERPRETATION.)

Dr. Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 32, in page 58, line 37 at the end to insert:
'boat includes any hover vehicle or craft being a vehicle or craft designed to be supported on a cushion of air and which is used on or over water;'
We reflected on this in earlier discussion about aircraft. I do not want to argue about whether a hovercraft is a boat or an aircraft. But it is important that it should be beyond doubt that the byelaws which the Bill empowers local planning and other authorities to make for the regulation of the use of boats for recreation should apply to hovercraft. That is the purpose of the Amendment. We have borrowed it from Clause 101 of the current Road Traffic Bill, so we are also calling in aid the Ministry of Transport.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Monro: Had we expected this Amendment to the interpretation Clause during the Committee stage, we could have had a short debate then. We were dealing with the noise of outboard motors and so on that might provoke people living in towns and villages and seaside resorts. Now we have to consider also the position of hovercraft.
I shall not try to draw the Minister into a discussion of whether a hovercraft is a boat or not, but has he discussed this Amendment with the industry from the practical point of view? It is not easy to redesign a hovercraft to meet the specifications of what may be one or perhaps more byelaws in Scotland affecting noise.
The first point is that we want to look to the future, as we have done throughout the Bill. It may well be that, in some years' time small, single-seater or two-seater hovercraft or taxi hovercraft will be crossing sea lochs or inland lochs. Hovercraft might become an important method of transport. It would


be a pity if this progress were stifled because of one or two or more rather Victorian-minded local authorities which brought in byelaws forbidding their use because of a little noise.
The hon. Gentleman was clear about the sea during the Committee stage. He indicated that the Bill applied only to within 1,000 yards of the shore. Provoked by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), he also said that it applied to the low water mark. There is a big difference between 1,000 yards from the shore and low water mark, and we seek clarification.
The hon. Gentleman will remember the hovercraft service on the Clyde and how it got a very cool reception from some local authorities because of noise. If a local authority were able to bring in a byelaw defeating the objectives of a hovercraft transport service on the Clyde, then private enterprise or public enterprise, whichever was involved, would have to give up running that service. Does not the hon. Gentleman feel that he has gone a little too far by including hovercraft? Has he realised all the implications?

Dr. Dickson Mabon: There would be ambiguity in the Bill without the Amendment. There would be doubt as to whether or not hovercraft were covered. That would be undesirable. The case for the hovercraft has yet to be established and, if there are Victorian local authorities, one must argue with them and convince them accordingly. They have an essential right to make byelaws and it is obviously better that we should define a hovercraft as a boat rather than leave the situation in ambiguity, with all the legal actions which might ensue, for example.
I do not think that the absence of the Amendment would change any attitudes or make it easier to get the hovercraft accepted. I remember the controversy referred to by the hon. Gentleman. I regret that it turned out as it did. I am sorry that Largs Town Council took such an attitude, but I do not think that omission of the Amendment would make the situation easier. We would not change attitudes by leaving ambiguity in the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Stodart: I beg to move Amendment No. 34, in page 59, line 36, to leave out 'includes' and to insert 'shall not include'.
This is designed to ascertain the Government's intention. It would bite on Clause 50, which permits local authorities and others to provide modest meals and refreshments—refreshments in this case including exciseable liquor.
I am not moving this Amendment—which would exclude exciseable liquor from refreshments which could be provided—because of any desire to prevent local authorities from taking part in competition with the more usual purveyors of exciseable liquid refreshment. There is a proviso in the Clause which has a certain effect, but the presence of these words raises a matter of some importance with regard to the granting of licences to local authorities in Scotland. This is breaking entirely new ground.
The exclusion of a Clause of this nature from any Scottish legislation has always been based upon the objection that those who grant the licences in Scotland are the local authorities themselves. The position in England is entirely different. In the National Parks Act, which one might well describe as the forerunner of the Bill, there was a provision which deliberately included exciseable liquor among the refreshments which a local authority in England and Wales could provide.
This issue has often arisen in Scottish legislation and the House has always come to the same conclusion. The best known reference is to be found in the Civic Restaurants Bill of 1947. Mr. Strachey, who was then the Minister of Food, said:
There are, however, very real difficulties, which we discussed exhaustively upstairs. Hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies convinced me that these difficulties were considerable. In Scotland, the licensing authority and the local authority are, for this purpose, the same body, and one cannot, therefore, get a double check, as one can in England and Wales where not only the local authority has to make up its mind whether it wishes to have a licence or not, but another separate and independent authority, the licensing authority, has to consider the application."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th February, 1947; Vol. 433, c. 818.]


There has been a string of local authority provisional orders seeking the right, broadly speaking, to have licences to trade. The most recent was that which concerned the City of Edinburgh, where it was unanimously agreed that permission should not be granted. This is not something which applies only to cities or burghs. In a county, where it would be reasonable to suppose that most of the countryside lies, the licensing authority consists of 50 per cent. magistrates and 50 per cent. justices of the peace. Therefore, there still remains the difficulty of being a judge upon one's own application.
It is not only a county which may be involved in this matter, because there is the reference which we discussed earlier today, in Clause 2(2) to
extensive areas of open land within burghs.
Therefore, a burgh which had been consistently refused this power, as has Edinburgh recently, would be asked under this provision to break entirely new ground. It is to ascertain the intentions of the Government that we have put down this Amendment which is somewhat exploratory.

Mr. MacArthur: I hope that the Minister will give great consideration to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart). As he knows, I am familiar with the Edinburgh case, but I will not refer to it in any depth.
What concerns me is that this interpretation Clause invites reference to Clause 50, which makes a substantial change in the refreshment-providing powers of local authorities in Scotland. I do not want to start a debate about whether local authorities should have power to provide exciseable liquor within premises of which they themselves are the licensing authorities—there are several views about that. I am not certain which way the final decision should go, but I am clear that we should not change the present accepted state of things in Scotland by a small part of an interpretation Clause. This is not the way to extend local authority powers.
Clause 50, upon which this Interpretation Clause has most hearing, says,
A local authority may acquire land compulsorily …

for the provision of refreshments and so on.
To say that the refreshment provision includes the sale of excisable liquor and the local authority under the present state of the law will decide whether it will grant itself a licence to sell exciseable liquor and, having awarded itself a licence, can compulsorily acquire the land on which the refreshment house is to stand, would be going too far. The House must understand that I do not want to make declarations about what local authorities should or should not do. That is a matter which must be debated, because there is a large area of doubt. What I am clear about is that we should not change the accepted state of the law in Scotland almost by accident through the provisions of an interpretation Clause of this kind.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I must confess that when I saw this Amendment on the Notice Paper I was stunned. While we dispatched the Bill very rapidly in about 10 sittings upstairs and we did not touch on this, I thought, it being such a large issue, that we would have had some debate if there was any doubt. I am glad that we have the chance now to explore it further, because I will be able to make a comment about how I see the consequences of this on the present circumstances.
I say straight away to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) that a lot has happened since 1947. The Guest Committee has made a number of pronouncements and there is the Licensing Act, 1959. These are all relevant considerations in this matter.
7.30 p.m.
I know that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West and I would certainly welcome the possibility of refreshments after long hikes over long trails. He was talking about the excellent hostelry at Carafrae Mill, which I have not visited, and he said that he would love to be there after walking across the Lammer Law. I will not say that noses lit up, but certainly there were murmurs of "Hear, hear" at the mention of this hostelry in Committee. I thought that there was no argument about the desirability of those seeking alcoholic refreshment at the end of a long walk being able to get it, at


the discretion of good people, or good people sponsored by the local authority.
I assure the House that the Bill does no alter the Licensing Acts in Scotland in any way. It will remain the position that a certificate under those Acts can be granted only to an individual. Therefore, neither the Forestry Commission nor a local planning authority as such would be able to hold a licence. If it wanted alcoholic refreshments to be available in the countryside, one would normally expect either body to arrange for someone else to do it.
I appreciate what has been said about the position of a local authority vis-à-vis a licensing court. Some people may feel that it is wrong that local authorities should, let land for use for licensed premises, because some of their members would be on the licensing courts which would decide whether a certificate should be granted. However, this is a matter which the Guest Committee specifically considered. I direct the attention of hon. Members to Cmnd. 2021, which is the Second Report of the Guest Committee which in Conclusion No. 61 said that it recognised that it would not be appropriate to introduce any statutory requirement to prevent common membership of licensing courts—which are not courts in the ordinary sense—and of local authority housing and planning committees, but that there was no reason why the licensing courts should not preserve complete independence in the exercise of their discretion.
The Bill, therefore, seeks to make no judgments about whether excisable liquor should or should not be provided. It merely provides the permissive power for suitable arrangements to this end to be made entirely at the discretion of the local authority, or other body concerned, and in accordance with all the usual licensing regulations.

Mr. MacArthur: I may have misunderstood, but surely it is the position that if the local authority is dissatisfied in its own judgment with the standard of the services provided, it can then set up as a trader and would then become the refreshment trader in its own right.

Dr. Mabon: If it chose to do that, it would not be a licensee. It might have a licensee in its own employ and it might have a licensee as an agent, or have a

firm deliberately brought in, in which case the firm would be acting as an agent. But that would not change the law of Scotland. The licence would still have to be held by an individual answerable to the licensing authority, no matter by whom he was employed or on whose behalf. He would manage the house, but the law would be unchanged.

Mr. MacArthur: He would be employed under the licence of the local authority.

Dr. Mabon: Conceivably he could be, but I do not see anything wrong in that. If it is proper for an authority to want to augment provision for accommodation, meals and refreshment and so on, I do not see what is wrong with the fact that it would be involved in this activity. It would still have to conform absolutely to the licensing laws, without exception, the licence being held by the indivdual. The Guest Committee has emphasised this and although I readily concede that the Guest Report is not the law, the Guest Committee says that it sees no reason why licensing courts should not preserve complete independence in the exercise of their discretion even where local authority planning and housing committees are concerned.
I do not think that this power will be abused in Scotland, because the Scottish public is so sensitive about these matters which are much more vigorously debated in Scotland than in England. Any planning authority embarking on this course would do so knowing that it had the overwhelming consent of its electorate—not just a marginal consent—because, as we all know, there is much feeling about this matter. I am sure that the Opposition do not intend in any way deliberately to exclude this possibility. I am certain that the comparable Bill for England and Wales will make provision of this kind and that there will be no argument about it. It is only in Scotland where we have doubts. I respect the Scottish position, which is why I assure the House sincerely that the licensing laws will not he upset in any way. This is merely a permissive power for suitable arrangements to this end to be made entirely at the discretion of the local authority or other body concerned and in accordance with all the usual licensing regulations.

Mr. Brewis: I am sure that if he were present my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) would ask how this would apply to a State Management District.

Dr. Mabon: I am glad that he is not here, because with all his experience on the local advisory committee he might be able to catch me out on several matters. I have taken up several of the matters which he raised in Committee and which required a great deal of examination, but I would not like to answer that question off the cuff. I should like to look into that to see whether I ought to write yet another letter to the hon. Member for Dumfries about the effect of the Bill on State management. However, I have chosen my words about the position in the rest of Scotland deliberately.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West said that this was an exploratory Amendment. It has produced a useful discussion which may be continued elsewhere, but I think that he will agree that it would be a mistake to incorporate the Amendment into the Bill.

Mr. Stodart: By leave of the House, may I say that the hon. Gentleman has reassured me considerably. I understand him to have given an absolute assurance that there is no change of any kind made or contemplated by Clause 50. From his example it would seem possible for an individual employed by a local authority to be a licensee and for that to lead to just the sort of difficulty which I foresaw. What worries me is not that it would be the local authority which would be doing the trading, but the fact that even if it were an employee who held the licence it would be most invidious for the person who was paid by the authority to run its business also to be the person to whom the licence was given. If at any time it were decided to reduce the number of licences in that local authority area, it would be extremely difficult for the licensing authority, which is the local authority, to make a completely detached decision about a person in its employ.
The hon. Gentleman said that he was certain that in the English Bill which is to come there would be a provision about this subject. I am certain that there will be. I agree, of course, that much water has passed under the bridge

since 1947, but the whole system of granting licences is utterly different in England and Wales and the difficulties which I have described do not arise.
This has been a valuable discussion. This is certainly not the time to embark upon a long debate about licensing regulations. However, can the hon. Gentleman say whether there is in Scotland at this time any example of someone employed by a local authority to trade in liquor on the authority's behalf? It would be considerable news to us if there were.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: Off the cuff, I could not say that. I could not give an example. I do not think that there is one. In the 1949 Act the English incorporated this provision. This is why I am confident that in their countryside Bill they will have this provision, and I think that it will be somewhat invidious if we do not have a similar provision in our Bill; but I take the point made by the hon. Gentleman. The licensing system in Scotland is different from that in England, but it is not right to say that a licensing court is, after all, the local authority. This is precisely the view against which the Guest Committee was protesting. A local authority does not mandate its magistrates. Nobody can mandate a magistrate. He can complain of interference with his duties if any other body seeks to mandate him, or tell him what he should do in his capacity as a magistrate.
It is true that he is a magistrate because he is a member of a local council and has been chosen by his fellows to act as a magistrate. His magistracy derives from his membership of the local authority, but his actions are not those of a man answerable to a local authority. He is a member of a licensing court, and this is why I think the distinction must be made. The Guest Committee said that the licensing court should preserve its complete independence in the exercise of its discretion. Perhaps we should have a different system of licensing in Scotland, I do not know. This is a big question to raise on the Amendment. We do not believe that this provision is in breach of the present licensing law, or that it will in any way put local authorities in a more advantageous position


than any other bodies in regard to the licensing system.

Mr. MacArthur: Surely the hon. Gentleman will agree that this Clause represents, if not a change in the law, a large break with custom, in that it gives power to local authorities to employ an agency directly, a man to whom it could grant a licence in a building on land which it could acquire compulsorily for this purpose. This, surely, is a large departure which should not be carried through by means of an interpretation Clause provision.

Dr. Mabon: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, we are taking the argument to the extreme in this case. I am not complaining, I am merely saying that it is an extreme example.
The Interpretation Clause applies to the Bill as a Bill, not to the whole gamut of local authority activities. It is circumscribed by the various powers in the Bill dealing with refreshments, no more than that. It is not a general principle which is being applied. It is simply the application of the countryside code in England and Wales to that in Scotland, and I think that it would be invidious to be different in this respect. If defects arise from this, we should take other means to ensure that they were corrected, but I do not think that it would be right to weaken the Bill to this extent.
I am seized of the point which has been made, and my only regret is that it has come up so late in our discussions. Perhaps we should have thought about this for longer, and in more detail in Committee, but both sides are to blame. I did not spot it, nor did the Opposition. Perhaps we will have to discuss this matter at another stage.

Mr. Stodart: Mr. Stodart rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I thought that the hon. Member had replied to the debate.

Mr. Stodart: I was going to ask leave to speak again and say that in view of what the hon. Gentleman has said, and because I think that his words are of value and can be considered in another place, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule 2.—(GENERAL RESTRICTIONS TO BE OBSERVED BY PERSONS HAVING ACCESS BY VIRTUE OF PART II OF THIS ACT TO LAND WHICH IS OR WHICH GIVES OR FORMS PART OF ACCESS TO OPEN COUNTRY.)

7.45 p.m.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move Amendment No. 35, in page 63, line 20, to leave out', molests or disturbs' and to insert or molests'.
Mr. Speaker, may I suggest that with this Amendment we take No. 36, in page 63, line 32, to leave out paragraph (h), and Amendment No. 37, in line 42, to leave out paragraph (m)?

Mr. Speaker: If the House has no objection, so be it.

Dr. Mabon: Several times during the proceedings in Committee the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) expressed concern at the possibility that a person, being otherwise lawfully on access land, might become a trespasser—and be treated as such for the purposes of occupier's liability in the event of a subsequent accident to him—merely because, as the hon. Gentleman said, he had picked a rhododendron flower. He might equally have used putting up a pheasant or a grouse as his example or declaiming to the sea, like our latter-day Demosthenes, which was the example given in Committee. I was impressed by the hon. Gentleman's arguments, and I thought that we ought to go most carefully into the whole Schedule to see whether we could get this balance right.
I must emphasise from the outset, however, that the basic proposition of Clause 11(1) is satisfactory in the Government's view. Difficulties of the kind to which I have just referred arise only when the provisions of the Schedule are brought into operation by someone contravening one of the restrictions contained therein. As soon as this happens, the effect of the Schedule is that the person who has failed to comply with the restriction loses the protection given to him by Clause 11(1) and becomes a trespasser.
Since the passing of the Occupier's Liability (Scotland) Act, 1960, the legal position is that the court is bound to take into account all the considerations of a particular case. These will include the fact that the person concerned was on the land in question under an access


agreement or order; that people in general were enabled by agreement or order to come on to the land; that it would be in the occupier's contemplation that some of these people will be likely to infringe the restrictions set forth in the Schedule; and, also, that some precautions were necessary for the protection of such persons, even though the occupier would be entitled to treat them as trespassers.
So far as the provisions of the Schedule are concerned, the Amendment and the subsequent ones to delete paragraphs (h) and (m) go a long way to meet the hon. Gentleman's point. I am advised that the important aspects of paragraph (h) are sufficiently covered by other provisions of the Schedule, for example, if a person commits a crime he loses the protection of Clause 11(1). This will apply, for instance, to the person who digs up and removes a tree or a rhododendron bush, but will not catch the person who picks a flower, or primroses, or brambles. De minimis non curat lex. But paragraph (g) of the Schedule is sufficiently widely drafted to cover any significant damage.
With regard to paragraph (m)—we had a debate on this and I think that I told the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson), that I did not like this paragraph—it has seemed to us, on reflection, that paragraph (1) is adequate to cover any misbehaviour or unruliness which might arise. Since we think that paragraph (m) sits oddly with the countryside code, we had better delete it. If any further protection is thought desirable, it will be open to the local authority concerned to provide this in byelaws made under Clause 54.
With that general explanation, I hope that the House will agree that we have tried hard to get the Schedule right. I am not saying that this is the last word. If there are further suggestions, we have another opportunity elsewhere of amending the Schedule, but I think that these are three useful Amendments which ought to be made.

Mr. James Davidson: I am glad that the Minister has tabled these Amendments. I agree with them, but I am still a little unhappy about this question of the trespasser. The whole meaning of Clause 11(1) constantly impinges on the

law of trespass as it exists in Scotland. Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that the law will in no way be altered by the terms of the Schedule, that there will still be no legal difference between the man who is a trespasser and the man who is not, except that one is there with permission, and one is there without, and that there will be no legal difference in the treatment of these persons as trespassers, or not as trespassers, unless they have done damage or infringed some other law?

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Brewis: As the hon. Gentleman was kind enough to say that I had raised some of the points, I rise merely to say that I am grateful to him for putting forward these Amendments. They certainly will help, I give him that. But I am still not entirely happy about the person who enters on to the land and commits some trivial breach of the provisions as a result of which he may be treated as a trespasser—especially where there is a question of a public liability insurance policy involved.
The Minister asked for suggestions. In connection with Wigtown County Council I had never appreciated that the Clause also applied to the sea—about 1,000 yards off-shore. Should not this aspect of the question be considered in another place, in view of the fact that bad things can be done at sea. For example, holidaymakers can disturb fishermen's salmon nets and set lobster creels in the wrong places.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: No. 36, in page 63, line 32, leave out paragraph (h).

No. 37, in line 42, leave out paragraph (m).—[Dr. Dickson Mabon.]

Order for Third Reading read.—[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified]

7.51 p.m.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
It would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to thank my hon. and right hon. Friends and hon. Members


opposite—of both colours—for the constructive way in which they have dealt with this Bill—a Bill which touches on the rights and interests of owners and occupiers of land at many points. It is a clear sign that in making better access to the countryside possible for the ever-increasing numbers of our young people who are seeking to enjoy themselves there, we have not neglected to keep in mind the legitimate interests of those who live there all the year round and earn their living in the countryside.
We had the great advantage of having before us the provisions of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949, and the Report of Study Group 9 of the Countryside in 1970 Conference. These have been useful guidelines for our discussions, and we have done very well in getting this far with the Bill. The result is that we are a long step ahead of England in this matter, and I know that one or two hon. Members from South of the Border have been taking a keen interest in our proceedings in the hope that they could usefully be applied to their own discussions some time later in this Parliament.
I want to pay tribute to the degree of co-operation that the Government have received from outside bodies during the passage of the Bill. It has been exceptional. Sometimes it is considered a little invidious to mention names, but I feel that I ought to make specific reference in this matter to the County Councils' Association and the Convention of Royal Burghs, the National Farmers' Union of Scotland and the Scottish Landowners' Federation, the Crofters' Commission and the National Trust.
As always, the pace of legislative progress makes it difficult to have all the legislative consultation that one would wish to have if time permitted. My officials and I have tried to see as many bodies as possible and if any of them thinks that it has not been consulted as fully as it would have wished I can only regret that the burden of my present duties is heavy and time has been short.
There has been an almost unanimous acceptance of the general principles of the Bill. I am naturally disappointed that the Scottish Rights of Way Society still feels that the Bill's provisions dealing

with rights of way do not go as far as it would wish. However, we have dealt with this and I think that we are right in the positive approach that we are taking. I am sure that some of that Association's fears are not as broadly based as it thinks. We do not want it to be abolished, as it requested some time ago, and its work taken over by statutory authorities; we want it to continue as vigorously as ever and to work in close consultation with the Countryside Commission as one of its most faithful and loyal allies.
The Bill seeks to get things done. It is a constructive Bill. It is almost without precedent for a Bill of this impotance to go though the House as easily as it has. I want to pay tribute to the leading Members of the Opposition for the way in which they have helped the Government to get the Bill through. We are now handing it over to the Commission, if the other place agrees, and to the local planning authorities. With the financial help we are willing to provide they can translate our aspirations into facilities for our own people and for our visitors to enjoy the unrivalled charms of our Scottish countryside.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. Stodart: First of all, I thank the Minister for the kind things that he has said about my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) and myself. My hon. Friend and I welcomed the Bill in the Second Reading debate and I enjoyed the Committee stage, if only because I was allowed, one morning, to recapture memories of certain primrose paths—if not necessarily the wild oats that I sowed elsewhere. I still think that it was a fair risk starting a 70-Clause Bill in the last half of April, but it shows what can be done in Committee when both sides are determined to improve a Bill.
I had to be away from the Committee during the final two sittings, but so attached had I become to the Bill that I can assure the Minister that I found myself with distinctly nostalgic thoughts on the Tuesday and Thursday when he was busy in the final stages.
The Bill is very much improved. It is still not quite perfect. The Secretary of State has moved a little in our direction by making certain changes in


Schedule 1. Members of the Commission may now be paid as well as the chairman, which means that the door is no longer shut against having two or three full-time members. The door is not fast shut, but the Minister of State made it quite clear that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is dead set against paid members. Those were the words he used. The chairman is expected to devote more time to his duties than others members and this, when considered in conjunction with the idea that has been expounded, of a top-notch executive staff, raises fears among us that the Commission will find it difficult to get the right chairman for the great task that he will have to undertake, which demands some long-term thinking.
To do part-time work, people will tend to come off those lists which all those who have held office are well aware of, and which are looked at in connection with hospital boards, committees of management of agricultural colleges, and hosts of other occupations.
The door has been opened to possible changes in future. Even though the maximum of 14 has been retained the number required for a quorum has been reduced and I am optimistic enough to think that that is a straw in the wind. We welcome these changes. I express the sincere hope that the Commission will not be composed of people representing special interests. If that were to be the case any worthwhile conclusions and firm and resolute decisions would be very difficult to arrive at.
It is inevitable that there will be teething troubles before the Commission gets into full swing. For example, we have discussed in Committee how restrictions could be imposed on access if the risk of fire was severe. One can so easily imagine the disappointment of people who, perhaps weeks ahead, have set aside a weekend, to walk over a long-distance route, and then, having wonderful weather, are faced with part of the route closed because of an application in respect of fire risks. All of this is part of that conflict of interests which I have emphasised we must face. It is a conflict not necessarily between selfish people—although there are some—and a lot of extremely reasonable folk. It is one between people who are extremely reasonable, but who have merely

different priorities when they think about the countryside.
I think that every acre of what is described as open country in the Bill will one day have to be used for growing either food or timber, such will be the pressure of the population explosion upon us and the rest of the world. If I am right, and I may be wrong, then recreation cannot have all things its own way. That is the point that I have attempted to make, both on Second Reading, in Committee and today.
I am a countryman, and there are many things for which I am profoundly grateful in my life so far—good health is perhaps the most important of them. Very high on the list is the fact that I was given the chance, not only of living but doing something worthwhile in what is, in my view, quite the loveliest country in the world. It is because I want as many people as possible to see more, to learn more and to enjoy more of our countryside that I welcome the Third Reading of the Bill.

8.4 p.m.

Mr. James Davidson: The Scottish Liberal Party welcomes the Bill. We think that it has an admirable object, but has some flaws. I have taken a great interest in the passage of the Bill, and I hope that the Minister of State will not mind if I repeat certain points which have arisen during its various stages. I question whether there is any real need for a Countryside Commission. The powers already granted under the Agriculture Act to set up rural development boards could have been extended to include the powers given in Clause I of this Bill, enabling the rural development boards to carry out these functions.
It seems a case, possibly of creating one more commission, one more board, and one more committee, which seems to be the trend these days. I would have liked to have seen a little more direct responsibility to the electorate of the Countryside Commission, but I am certain that its components will be such that it will do its job properly. I would like to see less of the piecemeal approach to the whole business of land use. This might have been achieved if the powers given in the Countryside Commission had instead been given to rural development boards. In the case of the Highlands and


Islands Development Board, I agree with the point made earlier that the functions of the Countryside Commission could well have been given to this board.
I am a little worried about the definition, in Clause 11, of excepted land. This is an unsatisfactory definition, particularly to the agricultural community. It is still unsatisfactory, although I know that a great deal of thought has been given to this point. Livestock rearing land is land which can be used for crop growing, and technically speaking, under the Bill, even as amended, it would be possible to give an access order in respect of land growing crops. I realise that this probably will not happen in practice, but it could. Suppose that there is an area with a beach, to which the public would like access, and suppose that access is prevented by the owners of land between the beach and the road.
How is it envisaged the ordinary citizen will go about drawing to the attention of the Countryside Commission the need for the public to have access to this beach? Will he do it through his local councillor, for him to raise with the local planning authority, and then have it raised with the Countryside Commission, or is it envisaged that members of the public will be able to make direct contact with the Countryside Commission, to bring to its notice areas which they feel should be accessible?

Mr. Baker: I, too, welcome and approve of the Bill, and the general principle. We are all agreed that it will make an enormous difference to the control of the Scottish countryside, for all people in Scotland and for people further afield, particularly tourists. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) referred to the size and make-up of the Commission. I endorse his view, that the membership of the Commission should be made up of people who are non-specialists, in the sense that they are not representing a certain body. That could cause an awful lot of trouble and I sincerely hope that it will not be the case.
I hope that when the Commission is set up its offices and headquarters will not necessarily be in Edinburgh. We are becoming somewhat hidebound by the magnetic effect of Edinburgh and Glasgow. I would even offer facilities in my

own constituency for the housing of the Countryside Commission. In all sincerity I ask that the siting of the Commission should not be in Edinburgh or Glasgow.
One of the major tasks of the Commission, particularly in its early days, and the Minister of State acknowledged this, will be the education of the public. The last thing that we want is damage and desecration, albeit unwittingly, by those who are not, if I may use the term, educated in the enjoyment of the countryside.
During Committee the Minister of State said that he thought, without a doubt, that there would be an educational officer appointed by the Commission. I hope that this will be so, and that the various means and methods of communication will be used to educate those who are to enjoy the countryside. As has been said, most of the damage caused in the countryside is not due to vandalism, but to sheer ignorance. One thing that the Minister of State learned during the Committee and on Report, was that the female is more deadly than the male.
I speak in respect of cattle. There is one major defect in the Bill, in that bulls have been emphasised time and again, when we have not had enough emphasis put within the Bill on the danger to the public of the female of the species—namely, cows. I hope that we can get over it.
If there is anything which would cause difficulty in obtaining access orders, in my humble opinion it will be Clause 44, and I hope that when the Bill gets to another place some other way can be found round this difficulty. If difficulties are put in the way then access agreements will be difficult to reach. We do not want access orders, it will be far better to get agreements. I hope that the Bill achieves its objective when it becomes an Act, as I am sure it will, and that it will make more of Scotland for tourists and the people of Scotland.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Brewis: May I say a few words in farewell to the Bill, which occupied about 10 sittings in Standing Committee. It will encourage many people to go out of the urban areas to visit the coasts, hills, moors and mountains of Scotland and therefore it is very much to be welcomed.
At the same time, it is important that the rights of people who live in remote areas should be taken into consideration. To a certain extent they will benefit from increased tourism, which is important for rural areas, but, unfortunately, the people who will benefit are not always those whose land is likely to be crossed by those coming out from the towns.
There is anxiety particularly among hill farmers and foresters about the Bill. They are naturally anxious, for example, about the live match which is dropped and which starts a forest fire or the dog which is allowed to go marauding over the hills. I am glad to see the countryside code which has been incorporated in Schedule 2. This will do much to allay that anxiety. The Minister of State's idea about a public liability policy with the premium to a certain extent being defrayed by the Commission is very good.
I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. Baker) that information about what he can do and should not do, and what he can do at certain times of the year, is very important for the person who goes walking on the hills. That has an important educational effect. I am afraid that I am still somewhat worried about his position if he is damaged physically by the carelessness or even the selfishness of people who own or occupy land. I am still not entirely happy that a comparatively innocent walker may receive no compensation for some physical damage which he suffers.
I am delighted by Clause 58, which gives the Forestry Commision power to help to create amenities in its forests. People do not fully realise what a wonderful picture the forests will be in Scotland over the next few years. In the past, the Forestry Commision has lacked that power. It will be a useful power, and I hope that the Commision gets plenty of money for this sort of job. I welcome the Bill. It was a Measure which we intended to introduce had we won the last election, and the Minister of State is very lucky to have been able to introduce it.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Willis: I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) say that this is a Bill which the Conservative Party would have intro-

duced if it had won the last General Election. They did not put it in their election address until the last election, by which time it had become part of Labour Party policy because we had already announced it.

Mr. Brewis: I am glad that at last one of the Labour Party's promises has been fulfilled.

Mr. Willis: Not the only one. I should be out of order if I gave a list of promises which the Government has fulfilled. The Conservative Party took this idea from the Labour Party and put it into that glorious hotchpotch which it produced at the last election of things which they would do. Very generously, we do not mind that. We accept it as a pat on the back for us that they should seek their ideas from us.
I felt it right that an hon. Member on this side of the House should express appreciation of the fact that the Bill has reached this stage. Undoubtedly, we have a heritage in Scotland which is unique and worth preserving. But time is short. People living in the towns go out into these rural areas every weekend—such areas as that mentioned by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) along the Lothians and the Berwickshire coast, or areas along the Ayrshire coast or on Loch Lomondside or Lochearnhead. They go to these areas in ever-increasing numbers.
I make the point not only to demonstrate the urgency of the Measure, but also to point out to those who, on behalf of landowners, farmers and others, have expressed fears about the Bill that they ought to welcome the Bill, because many of the things which they fear would happen in any case without it. They would happen because of the large number of people now seeking the countryside throughout the summer from Easter to October. When large numbers of people are seeking the countryside and there are no regulations and no places to picnic or to park, and no recognised footpaths, they do far more damage than when these provisions have been made for them. The Bill ought, therefore, to lessen rather than to increase those fears. I look upon the Bill as a safeguard.
I support the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Baker) in his suggestion that this body should be sited outside Edinburgh.


When we set up a new body we ought to consider taking it away from Edinburgh. When we are setting up a new organisation for the United Kingdom we ought not to set it up in London. Once a body has been established, the number of arguments which are heard for not moving it away are staggering. It is much more difficult to shift it once it has been established than to site it elsewhere before it is set up.
Much of the office employment in Edinburgh must be cleared out of Edinburgh. I say this for many reasons, but particularly because we have sufficient in Edinburgh and we want employment in other parts of Scotland. Let us get rid of some of the office employment from Edinburgh and move people who work in the professions into an area around the central Highlands, for example Perthshire.

Mr. Baker: Banff.

Mr. Willis: I think that Banff is too far North.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the manner in which he has conducted the Bill through the House. I was rather harsh to him earlier today, but he knows that I congratulate him on getting the Bill through so quickly and in such a harmonious manner, and with the general support and agreement of hon. Members opposite. I wish the Bill every success.

8.18 p.m.

Earl of Dalkeith: I rise refreshed by the somewhat conservative attitude of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) in his advocacy of preserving our heritage.

Mr. Willis: My view is that we should preserve it in public and not in private hands.

Earl of Dalkeith: I welcome the Bill because it manages to achieve simultaneously two things which many people 50 years ago would have said could not be achieved together. It will satisfy the demands of a mainly urban population to enjoy the countryside, at the same time recognising that the land is an active business and industry which must not be frustrated in the execution of its business. If, through sensible administration, the

Measure succeeds in achieving those two objectives it will be valuable.
One thing that emerged very clearly from our Committee discussions was the very co-operative attitude of all those concerned with the land, whether tenants, owner-occupiers or landowners. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) referred to the landowners' fears, but I have not met any landowners who have had any such fears. Those owning land want the Bill, because it is quite clear that with the population expanding by another 20 million during the next 30 years, with more leisure time, and more congested roads to the sea, the demand to get into the countryside will increase year by year.
If provision is made for those people to go to places where they can enjoy themselves, with car parks and such necessary facilities as wash places, they will be able to enjoy the countryside without frustrating the business of the land. If the Bill facilitates that state of things it will perform a very valuable purpose.
A point about the welcoming reaction of landowners and others was the suspicion that it seemed to create in the minds of some hon. Members opposite, who immediately assumed that a trick must be involved. I hope that those Ministers who had discussions with the landowners will be able to dispel all the old fears of landowners as bogy men, black-hearted villains and the like, and that it is clear to them now that the landowners are perfectly decent people who are running a business.
Because their business concerns the land, they are not, for that reason, any worse than the man running, say, a bookshop, in Edinburgh, or any other type of business. The land is a perfectly legitimate business. I hope that we may see a red-letter day for this Measure in the form of the burying of the favourite Aunt Sally of the Labour Party—the landowner. I hope, too, that landowners will not only back the Bill with words, but will later help the Government in its implementation.

8.22 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): I should almost apologise for coming in at this late stage of the Bill, but I could not hold myself back


having heard the noble Lord the Member for Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith). Speaking as the biggest landowner in Scotland—and, as Secretary of State, I am the biggest landowner in Scotland—I can assure him that the Secretary of State has never been a black-hearted villain. However, even in the best of flocks there are occasional black sheep, and that is true of Scotland, as elsewhere. We noted the hon. Member's defence of the interests of the landlords, but there is no doubt that the Bill provides them with protection which they are very glad to see.
On the whole, everyone has dealt with the Bill in relation to the importance it merits as having a comprehensive remit for what Scotland really is—the land of Scotland. We must face the fact that over the centuries fewer and fewer people in Scotland have had direct contact with the land. This movement is still going on, yet there is still the desire, the need, for people to get into the countryside and to enjoy the countryside. We must channel this desire properly by way of access agreements and, where necessary, access orders for the people's benefit, and also to ensure the preservation of the Scottish countryside and landscape.
When the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. James Davidson) spoke of access to the beach, I thought for a moment that he would cite an instance of this very problem that I came across in my travels last year in the inner Hebrides. This is a problem. What are people to do? They will probably contact their local district councillors or, in scattered areas, their local county councillors or even their town councillors, but I do not doubt that, either directly or through their Member of Parliament, they will write to the Secretary of State for Scotland, who solves all their problems, be they connected with beaches or with education, as we had this morning in the Scottish Grand Committee or anything else.
The point is that we now have this Commission to take up these matters. That is the important thing. I did not like the reference just now to "just another committee". It is not just a committee. It is a Commission that has been given certain functions, duties and powers.
Who will be on the Commission? As hon. Members know, the Bill provides for this, and in the consultations I will have I should be able to find out just exactly who are the right people for membership. I, too, have experience of the same names coming up for every job—the "stage army" I call them. We will try to look beyond them to those who have a feeling for the countryside and appreciate the importance of the work involved.
Where will the Commission's headquarters be? I want to deny a rumour that is going about that it will either be in Greenock or Kilmarnock. We have had a suggestion that the headquarters should be sited in Banff—I do not know whether the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Baker) has made up his mind whether it should be in Banff or Macduff, but he had better sort it out. My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) got as far north as Perth. The location is at present being studied in advance of the Commission's establishment, and the eventual decision will be taken bearing in mind regional development and the Commission's function. However, I have noted the feelings expressed on this aspect.
It has been suggested that I should look again at Clause 44 but, as hon. Members know, Clause 44 is already a compromise and we want to be very careful about any changes that might be made there. The point was well taken. The hon. Member for Banff spoke about there being ignorance rather than deliberate vandalism. This is true, but if we provide the facilities and are able to ensure that publicity is given to those facilities there will be less ignorance and less vandalism.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East played his part in the early stages of this Bill. I know how much work he did on it and how close it was to his wishes. In Scotland we have a very proud heritage of countryside which is unrivalled in the world. It many cases it is close to our biggest cities. Within half an hour of Glasgow one is on Loch Lomondside, and in the Highlands of Scotland. This is worth preserving and it is worth ensuring that the fullest use is made of it. As hon. Members have said, the Bill is timely and we have a proper balance of interests.
I express my personal thanks to the Minister of State for the way in which he has handled the Bill and also for the co-operation we have received not only from hon. Members on both sides of the House but from interests outside the House. I include the National Trust and the Landowners' Federation whose interest is sincere. I hope that this Bill will get proper treatment when it goes to another place, and I thank the House for the way in which it has been received here.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

POST OFFICE (DATA PROCESSING SERVICE) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

New Clause No. 4.—(DATA PROCESSING ACCOUNT.)

(1) The Postmaster General shall keep a separate account to be called the 'Data Processing Account'.

(2) There shall be credited to the Data Processing Account all amounts (including any advances by the Treasury under section 9 of the Post Office Act 1961) received by the Postmaster General in connection with the provision of services and facilities for the processing of data by computer (hereinafter in this section referred to as 'data processing services').

(3) There shall be debited to the Data Processing Account—

(i) all expenses incurred by the Postmaster General in connection with the provision of data processing services;
(ii) an amount representing so much of the establishment expenses of the Postmaster General as is attributable to the provision of data processing services;
(iii) the amount required to make proper provision for the depreciation or renewal of the assets employed in providing data processing services;
(iv) the amount required to make proper allocation to reserve; and
(v) an amount representing a proper return on the capital employed in providing data processing services.—[Mr. David Price.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. David Price: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): With this new Clause the following new Clauses can be considered:

New Clause No. 1.—(CHARGES FOR DATA PROCESSING.)

The charges to be made by the Postmaster General for the provision of services and facilities for the processing of data by computer shall be not less than sufficient as, taking one year with another, are requisite to balance the Data Processing Account.

New Clause No. 2.—(DUTY OF POSTMASTER GENERAL AS TO FINANCE.)

It shall be the duty of the Postmaster General so to conduct the business of providing services and facilities for the processing of data by computer as to secure that the


revenue received from the business in any financial year is not less than sufficient as taking one year with another and after meeting all proper charges to revenue (including interest on capital at current market rates, making proper provision for the depreciation or renewal of assets, proper allocations to reserve and debiting the business with so much of the establishment expenses of the Postmaster General as is attributable to the business) will provide a proper return on the capital employed in the business.

Mr. Price: The object of this Clause is to empower the Postmaster-General to keep a separate account in respect of the data processing services which he will be providing under the terms of the Bill. The House will recall that in Committee we moved a new Clause to create a separate data processing fund. That proposition did not find favour with the Government. I shall not repeat the arguments we deployed in favour of a separate fund. I still think that a separate fund would be the best method of handling the many financial problems which will arise from the establishment of these new E.D.P. services. The problems remain. Our proposals for meeting them lie in this new Clause and in new Clause No. 1.
In new Clause No. 4 we are seeking to establish a separate data processing account, separate from the general accounts of the Post Office. I think that the House will recognise that new Clause No. 1 is the logical consequence of establishing a separate data processing fund. I shall concentrate on new Clause No. 4 and the creation of a separate account. No doubt my hon. Friends will endeavour to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and will deploy arguments in support of new Clause No. 1. I trust that at this stage it will not prove necessary to develop the case for a separate fund at any length. Our proposal, I am sure, must appeal to the Government.
I remind the House that in countering our arguments in favour of a separate fund the Assistant Postmaster-General gave a clear undertaking that the Post Office would keep a separate account for its data processing services. In his Second Reading speech, the Postmaster-General indicated something similar when he said:
Needless to say, this service will be operated on the same financial basis as the others we provide. It must make a profit each year and generate its contribution to

capital requirements of the Post Office."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th April, 1967; Vol. 745, c. 505–6.]
This suggested to many of us that the Postmaster-General had in mind something akin to what is embodied in new Clause No. 4.
The Assistant Postmaster-General was even more forthright in Committee, when he said:
there will be separate accounts of the data processing service. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 13th June, 1967; c. 25.]
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology was equally forthright in winding up the Second Reading debate. He said:
The national data processing service will be set up separately, on a separate accounting basis, and will have its own accounts, which will be published."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April, 1967; Vol. 745, c. 1110.]
Therefore, I suggest that on the principle of our new Clause there can be no controversy at all. The desirability of having a separate account for these new E.D.P. services seems firmly established and the principle cannot be at issue. It is agreed by the three Ministers who handled the Bill.
Therefore, I am full of hope that the Postmaster-General will accept the new Clause. Of course, he may object to the drafting. I think that the drafting is correct, but I have been in the House long enough to have the highest respect for the ability of the Government's legal advisers to find fault with the drafting of any new Clause put forward by any hon. or right hon. Member. This we accept as part of the facts of British life, along with our weather. If it should be the case—I do not suppose for a moment it will be—I shall willingly seek leave to withdraw the Clause, provided that the Government undertake to introduce a new Clause of their own to fulfil the same object when the Bill goes to another place.
The House will observe that our drafting appertains to the present method of Post Office financing and does not anticipate the implementation of the White Paper on the reorganisation of the Post Office, which the Postmaster-General presented earlier this year. That is why we make reference to Section 9 of the Post Office Act, 1961. It is also the reason


why we follow normal Government accounting methods and speak of "the establishment expenses" and not to current account and capital account as I would prefer for such a service.
I have taken on many occasions, and shall continue to take, every opportunity to criticise the Government on public accounting and the failure in Government services to make a distinction between current and capital account, but it would be quite wrong in moving this sort of new Clause, to expect the Post Office, under its present accounting dispensation, to act differently from the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and the remainder of public bodies. I hope that when we get the legislative proposals of the Postmaster-General, doubtless during the next Session of Parliament, he will be minded to move over from the Treasury's cash flow accounting on to current and capital account.
In the new Clause we speak of
proper provision for the depreciation of the assets employed and the renewal of assets.
This is essential, but I must confess that I am not entirely happy about the current Post Office practice of depreciating computers over 10 years. This is too long. I should have thought that in the present state of the computer art, five to seven years would be sufficient, but this is a matter of detail and I have not written into the new Clause the precise number of years over which I think it right to depreciate assets.
In an art which is changing as rapidly as that of computers, it is probably right to allow a rate of depreciation in the light of new knowledge. We also refer to "a proper return on capital".

Mr. R. F. H. Dobson: Would the hon. Member think that there was a need to depreciate at different rates or for different sizes of computers?

Mr. Price: That is quite a possibility. I would put it the other way round and would say that those computers which are most established in current use should probably be depreciated over a rather longer period than entirely new models which are not well-established and are more likely to fall down on technological redundancy. My concern is not that they will actually physically work out, but that

they will become technologically redundant.
We also refer to "a proper return on capital". This is something which I am sure appeals to the whole Treasury Bench, and particularly to the Treasury itself. We are of the opinion that there should be a substantial specific target placed on the Post Office E.D.P. services which, in our view, should certainly be different from the global target placed on the Post Office as a whole. In our view, that target should be after the payment of interest and not before, as is the present Post Office target under the provisions of the 1961 White Paper. I would have thought that this change would commend itself to everybody.
I do not wish to engage the House in a detailed discussion, important though it is, on what should be the appropriate rate of return on capital for these services. I realise that the Government will be setting new targets soon for all the nationalised industries. We know that the current target for the Post Office will run out in March of next year. I am, therefore, prepared to wait for the results of the Government's deliberations and whatever they decide as the necessary financial targets for nationalised industries, including the Post Office; although, no doubt, when the time comes one would wish to debate the aptness of the figure chosen.
That is why we have deliberately used a somewhat vague phrase:
proper return on the capital employed …
I am content to leave the definition of "proper" until the Government produce next Session, as doubtless they will, their new White Paper on the financial and economic obligations of the nationalised industries, but that there should be a proper return on capital is a completely unexceptionable statement on which the whole House, I am sure, would agree.
We have tried to phrase this Clause before the reorganisation of the Post Office takes place, in the knowledge that the Postmaster-General will be bringing us a comprehensive Bill in the next Session. But I must make this reference to the effect of the reorganisation of the Post Office on our Clause, because we have borne this in mind.
I will make two brief comments. In the Postmaster-General's White Paper,


Cmnd. 3233, "Reorganisation of the Post Office", he refers in paragraph 14 to the fact that
The Corporation will have the same sort of financial obligations as other nationalised industries.
I hope that the E.D.P. services will have a specific target of their own and that they will not be swept together with the myriad of other Post Office services in a single global figure. I do not want to pursue this any further tonight, but I am sure the Postmaster-General will agree that to lump them all together will defeat the purpose of having these targets, and that what is necessary is to get a grouping of services together, providing a homogeneous and comprehensive whole. I suggest that the E.D.P. services would survive one such grouping within the totality of the Post Office services.
My second point relates to paragraph 15 of the Command Paper where we read:
The Corporation will inherit a number of public services which cannot be made financially viable at any reasonable level of charge.
I trust that neither the Postmaster-General nor any of his staff will suggest that any of the new E.D.P. services will be one of those services which cannot be made
financially viable at any reasonable level of charge".
I know that the Postmaster-General has agreed with nearly everything that I have said in moving this Clause. All that could possibly be left to divide us is whether it is necessary to get this new Clause into the Bill. I see the Assistant Postmaster-General shaking his head. I knew that I would anticipate his objection. The Postmaster-General and the Assistant Postmaster-General have given us their verbal undertakings during the course of the Bill that they will act in a manner which will fulfil the same purpose as our Clause. We know that the Postmaster-General is a man of honour and that he will certainly honour his undertakings, but these undertakings have no legal validity, and Postmaster-Generals come and go. All Ministers come and go, but I think that Postmaster-Generals come and go rather more rapidly than some other of their Ministerial colleagues. The verbal undertakings of earlier Post-

master-Generals have not the same hold on their successors as a legal undertaking.
I believe, too, that if the Government will accept the principle of our Clause this will be valuable to them when they are considering the details of the financing and the accountability of the Post Office when it is presented to us in its new form as a nationalised industry. I believe this is right in itself, and productive in the general exercise that the Postmaster-General is conducting on the appropriate form of accounting for the Post Office in its new form. This is why we want our Clause to be incorporated in the Bill.
This is not a matter which need detain us long. The principle is established. All we can disagree about is whether the new Clause should be incorporated in the Bill. I believe that it would be right to do so from the country's point of view, and, in the long run, it will assist the Postmaster-General in the many tasks he has ahead in making the new E.D.P. services a success and in his major task of reorganising the Post Office.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. John H. Osborn: My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) has put extremely well the argument for some compromise between these three new Clauses. He has already referred to paragraph 14 of the White Paper on the Reorganisation of the Post Office, which tells us that
The Corporation will have the same sort of financial obligations as other nationalised industries".
and refers to charges and conditions. In paragraph 23 says:
… the Corporation will itself have statutory power to fix charges for its services and facilities and the conditions on which they are to be provided.
I draw attention to the words of new Clause No. 2:
It shall be the duty of the Postmaster-General so to conduct the business of providing services and facilities for the processing of data by computer as to secure that the revenue received from the business in any financial ytar is not less than sufficient …
and so on. This is picked from the Post Office Act, 1961. My hon. Friend referred to the powers under Section 9.
Under Section 6 there is a general duty of the Postmaster-General as to finance:
It shall be the duty of the Postmaster-General so to conduct the business of the Post Office as to secure that its revenue is not less than sufficient, taking one year with another, to meet its outgoings which are properly chargeable to revenue account (including proper allocations to the general reserve established under the next following section).

Mr. David Webster: If my hon. Friend will refer to the Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries which looked into the Post Office, he will see from page 170 that the Post Office interpreted the words he was quoted as a statutory duty to do rather better than break even. I think that the point is apt.

Mr. Osborn: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for that intervenion, which raises an important point. I reaffirm that the statement of principle made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh, that any activity such as this—this is particularly so in the case of electronic data processing or the computer advisory services as distinct from transmission—must be subject a a whole to proper financial disciplines such as industry would be exposed to and, for that matter, such as the computer industry itself, and particularly the bureaux, is exposed to at present. The independent bureaux are in business. There are roughly 100 to 120 such independent bureaux. Because they are in private business, they will be subject to financial criteria and the conditions of the market.
We have covered a lot of ground on this subject. The whole matter was raised on Second Reading. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) referred to the borrowing powers under Section 8 of the 1961 Act—that is column 1104 of the OFFICIAL REPORT—and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology said in reply:
We can look at the experience of the Post Office to see how far this has paid off
and he went on to deal with the Post Office computer project, saying that it was
expected to show at least an 8 per cent. rate on a d.c.f. basis".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th April, 1967; Vol. 745, c. 1108.]
We asked many questions in Committee. On 13th June, the Assistant Postmaster-General said:

I undertake that we shall publish all the information for which hon. Members have asked this morning, and I must invite the Committee to reject the idea behind the Amendment.
So we went on until finally, referring to questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh, the Postmaster-General said:
There is a very simple reason for that. The Committee knows, I think, that the Post Office has a target of an 8 per cent. return on its capital. This was agreed during the period of the Conservative Government"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 20th June, 1967; cc. 26 and 111.]
In Committee and on Second Reading, we discussed the very points which my hon. Friend has raised. In the Financial Times of 26th June, since the publication of the Bill and since some of our discussions, there was a long review of targets for industry. The Post Office was compared with B.O.A.C., coal, gas and electricity, where returns of the order of 12 or 12·6 per cent. have been recorded, whereas the Post Office return has been low.
Eight per cent. is low. Where risk capital is involved, of which there are many cases, the fixed interest for a loan might easily be of the order of 8 per cent. for the person requiring finance to provide a service. After interest has been paid, it is quite impossible to assess what would be a reasonable commercial return. I imagine that any financier backing a computer bureau would hope within a reasonable period to have at least 10 per cent. and probably considerably more. That is the sort of return in the open market that anyone providing such a service would be expected to give.
We do not know whether the Post Office will be subjected to the same criteria. As part of a nationalised industry, if it is not subjected to those criteria, undoubtedly there will be conditions which will amount to unfair competition. I think that the Postmaster-General is indicating a certain amount of approval of what I say. Unfortunately, what we say tonight is irrelevant if it is wrong. We must establish a situation where those running service bureaux find that, because of competition, they are still able to remain in business and not be forced out by unfair competition.
My hon. Friend has said that the Postmaster-General can give us assurances, but those assurances may not be


binding on his successors. Hon. Members on this side of the House and the public at large would like to see something binding written into the Bill before it passes through this House and the other place. I should be willing to accept a compromise between new Clause No. 4, new Clause No. 1 and the Clause which I put forward as an alternative. I hope that the Postmaster-General will realise that, unless he binds the electronic data processing service to financial disciplines which amount to fair competition, he will create a monopoly which will destroy the private bureaux. Therefore, I hope that he will ensure that there is fair competition by providing the correct financial criteria.

Mr. Webster: My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) has quoted extensively from the Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries and, very rightly, he has talked about the duty laid on the Post Office under the Act of 1961, which sets out the financial responsibilities of the Postmaster-General for the Post Office as a whole. Later on in the Report, those responsibilities are divided as between the postal section and the telecommunications section. On page 172, the Committee deals with the point about depreciation, and there is supporting evidence from witnesses, who were very helpful on the subject. My hon. Friend has emphasised that the principal duty laid on the Post Office, as Chapter XV of the Report on page 170, is that
… they should so conduct their business as to secure their revenue is not less than …".
a certain amount. The important thing is that the Post Office very rightly interpreted this as a statutory duty to do rather better than to break even. That makes me optimistic that the Postmaster-General will either accept one of the new Clauses or submit a manuscript Amendment, which I am sure you will accept, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so that we may go on our way.
Paragraph XV(3) says:
Until 1965–66"—
and this is where I have a slight doubt—
the Post Office maintained separate general, capital and taxation reserves.

This is also important, but it has now ceased.
There is the rigid but very moderate financial objective of an 8 per cent. return on capital. The Post Office has fulfilled it, and has always attempted to do more than its statutory obligation. We respect it for this. In 1965–66 there was a change from maintaining separate general, capital and taxation reserves. This year borrowing power has been raised from £1,320 million to £1,750 million, with provision for extension to a maximum of £2,200 million, which is presumably obtainable as usual, by an affirmative Resolution of the House.
This is at a time when, as my hon. Friend said, the private sector, the bureaux which are at risk here, are savagely frozen. They would be unable to borrow money at the rate at which we see from paragraph XV(5) on page 171 the Post Office has been borrowing—a rate of 4·44 per cent.,
… being the average rate chargeable in respect of this liability as at 31st March, 1961.
The paragraph also says that since 1961 further advances had rates of interest ranging from 5⅜per cent. to 6⅞ per cent. This is very different from the rates at which even the most reputable company in the private sector could borrow. It would be extremely lucky if it borrowed at less than 2¼ per cent. over prime bill rate, which is at present about 5½ per cent. Well over 8 per cent. interest must already be paid on the vast borrowings that have been raised. I am talking about the absolutely blue chip companies, and not the smaller bureaux. But the small firm of today is the blue chip company of 20 years' time if it is successful.
The Prime Minister often talks about developing the technological aspect of industry. But such a firm has not the slightest chance of getting with 2½ per cent. of prime bill rate of 5½ per cent. I will be lucky if it borrows at between 9 and 10 per cent., at the very lowest. The interest rate will be higher because the operator and anybody who backs him at the present time with debenture money know that the Bill makes the project all the more risky. I hate to use the word "speculative" but such projects are becoming speculative because of such a Bill. Therefore, the dice are very heavily loaded.
The Post Office has always been very good in the past. The Select Committee says that it always maintained its financial obligations and sought to do further. But the Committee points out also time and again in Chapter XV that the Post Office has very considerable advantages over private industry. The chapter also says that the Post Office is exempt from the taxes to which industry in general is subject. It accepts the obligation to bear a burden corresponding to the taxes paid by industry, but the legal exemption remains.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Under the new Clause we are dealing only with the financing of data processing. I do not think that it is relevant to go into Post Office services generally at that great length.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Webster: I was one of the signatories to the Report. We took many weeks to go into the matter, and we had to examine the meeting of the financial obligation and the submission of proper accounts to the House. The point that you are making, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is extremely apposite, and I am grateful to you for it. We have to break down these things to make sure that there is not the slightest doubt on the part of the public that there is any unfair advantage against them. This is what the three new Clauses are all the time emphasising, that the public want to know that there is no unfair advantage against them. As I have been explaining, and as you will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, about the subject of prime bill rate, this is a great disadvantage against the private operator. What we are seeking—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: No, I cannot agree with the hon. Member. It is not obvious that what he is saying is relevant to any of the three proposed new Clauses, and I should be grateful if he would tell me to which of the three he thinks what he is saying is particularly relevant.

Mr. Webster: Certainly, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am very grateful to you—

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Arising from your Ruling, might I ask you to consider that one of the big issues between the two sides of the matter on this

issue is whether or not the data processing and the provision of equipment to carry it out should be in a separate account from the general account? This is one of the main burdens of contention in the debate. I suggest that my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster), although perhaps not going into other nationalised industries, might be entitled to argue the case for the provision of both capital and revenue accounts for data processing?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I agree. It is in order to argue the case for a separate account for the data processing services, but it does not seem to me in order on the proposed new Clauses to go into the whole question of Post Office finance generally.

Mr. Webster: I am very much obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will see in new Clause No. 4(3):
There shall be debited to the Date Processing Account … all expenses incurred by the Postmaster-General in connection with the provision of data processing services.
This covers the interest charged on borrowings to raise the capital to provide the service. I think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will readily appreciate that this is the nub of the argument that I am putting forward. All these things have to be laid out absolutely clearly and fairly so that people know what the position is.
I will not labour the point because I want very much to get on, but I am saying that there is an interest rate difference of 2 per cent. as between private industry and the Post Office, the bureaux and the Post Office itself. I will not go as yet as far as my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), but I shall later on be splitting up between capital and revenue. At the present moment I am simply talking about the interest rate on the massive borrowing that the House has given the Post Office, and this will have to be incorporated—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It appears to me that the hon. Gentleman has not understood what I have told him. He is entitled to argue the case for separate accounting for data processing, but he is not entitled to deal with the whole question of interest charges on Post Office finance generally.

Mr. Webster: But in the Post Office accounts, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will


find a reference to interest on capital debt. This is in the accounts.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not want the hon. Gentleman to keep arguing with me. I have given my Ruling, and I want him either to observe it or resume his seat.

Mr. Webster: I have resumed my seat on a number of occasions, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall be very interested to see what is the difference between the processing account which is definitely set out in the proposed new Clause No. 4(3) and these accounts which include amortisation charges. But, with respect to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will move on. I always respect the Chair, particularly you, Sir.
But, Mr. Deputy Speaker, am I allowed to talk about taxation? This is clearly shown in the accounts about which we are talking.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It does not matter if it is shown in the accounts. What is being asked for in the proposed new Clause is a separate account for data processing. This does not entitle the hon. Member to argue the question as to whether Post Office finances are affected generally.

Mr. Webster: I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but if one is talking about the accounts, one has to talk about the items in the accounts, and reserve taxation is a point in the accounts. Again with respect to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I move on from there.
I have looked closely at the accounts of nationalised industries. They are detailed and thorough and include not only taxation and amortisation but also rate burden, which has been very much discussed as a point of these accounts. The Post Office is exempt from rates, although it makes a payment in respect of other taxes and duties and also makes a payment to local authorities in lieu of rates. It also does its best to make provision for supplementary depreciation.
I simply make the point that we are seeking to stress that the new service—which we believe to be beyond the terms of the Post Office—should be given to serve the line and should not be an actual data processing service. We want to

make certain that there is no unfair advantage as against the taxpayer who is providing the money.
The Post Office has said that it does not want to have an unfair advantage as against the taxpayer, and if it really believes that it will accept one of these three new Clauses, prove the accounts with overheads, amortisation, taxation and rate burden and show that it is not getting an unfair advantage as against the taxpayer who, at the end of the day, is footing the bill.

The Postmaster-General (Mr. Edward Short): I thank the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) for the reasonable way in which they have supported new Clause No. 4. I understand, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you were kind enough to say that we could discuss at the same time new Clauses Nos. 1 and 2, and I propose to say something about each.
Perhaps I can deal, first, with new Clause No. 2. This seeks to impose on the new data processing service two obligations. The first is that of bearing fairly and squarely on its own account all the expenditure which arises from its operations. None of the expenditure is to be hidden elsewhere in any other account. None of it is to be carried by the other Post Office services, such as telecommunications or the postal service. I entirely agree with that principle. There is nothing between us on that, and I suport it entirely. I have said so on many occasions.
The second obligation that would be imposed by new Clause No. 2 is that the new service should earn income, not just enough to balance the books but more than enough so that it will continuously be aiming at a financial target. This target is expressed in new Clause No. 2 as
… a proper return on the capital employed in the business.
I do not quarrel with that, either. I think that a service like the Post Office should have a financial target at which to aim.
But I would mention that there is more than one valid way of expressing a financial target. At this juncture, I would not want every other possibility to be ruled out. I hope that hon. Members will not


read more into this than I said in Committee, but we are at the moment engaged in discussing our target for the next few years, because, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eastleigh rightly observed, the present target for the Post Office ends in March next year. Thus, I agree also with this principle. Indeed, I have no option.
The Select Committee on Nationalised Industries advocated different targets for different services. This is a possibility. I have no objection in principle to it. I am sorry that I cannot enlighten the House any more about it, but we are engaged in discussion at the present time. It would be perfectly reasonable if the data processing service had a different target.
The hon. Member for Hallam indicated that the present Post Office target of 8 per cent. on capital is low compared with the others. However, if he looks carefully he will see that the targets for the nationalised industries are assessed on a variety of different bases. If they were all calculated on the same basis, the Post Office's 8 per cent. would be quite a high target compared with the others. I am not sure that it probably is not as high as any of them if they were all calculated on the same basis.
Clause 2 sets out to explain how we now run the existing main Post Office services. I have already said that a data processing service, if approved by Parliament, would itself be a main service subject to a predetermined financial target. If it were not operated on this basis the other Post Office services would suffer. I will say a word about that later.
New Clause No. 1 places on the new service a much lighter obligation. It is merely to earn enough money to balance the books. If the obligations imposed by new Clause No. 2 are effectively met, then everything that new Clause No. 1 allows for will inevitably be covered. It is a case of the greater including the lesser. Therefore, I need say no more about new Clause No. 1.
With these obligations duly set up, new Clause No. 4 seeks to arrange for the compilation of accounts which will accurately reflect the income and expenditure of the data processing service and will show the actual financial target

achieved and the allocations made to a General Reserve. I entirely accept all the principles underlying this new Clause.
In all these new Clauses, as the hon. Member for Eastleigh feared, there are drafting points which would, I am told, make them inoperable. I do not think, however, that the House will wish me to take up time in analysing the Clauses phrase by phrase. It is clear that the point at issue is not whether these exact words should be carried into a statute, but whether there should be legislation on these points.
Reverting to the financial obligations, hon. members have made it clear that they have a fear. They have made this clear on Second Reading, in Committee, and here on Report. They fear that I shall deliberately and systematically run a data processing service at a loss and make up the income needed by the Post Office as a whole by imposing inflated charges on customers who use the monopoly services of posts and telecommunications. I think that this is putting their fear fairly, but it is difficult to think of anything sillier.
At the end of the first year in which I did it, the fact of my having done it would be disclosed by the annual accounts. This would be so whether or not there was legislation about them. In their present state of financial health neither the postal nor the telephone services can afford to carry other people's burdens, and I shall not be able to put up their prices without the news leaking out and giving rise to a lot of questions which I shall have to answer. I said in Committee that anybody who imagines that any Postmaster-General would start up any other unremunerative service knows very little about the Post Office. One of our main preoccupations is to try and get rid of existing unremunerative services without starting up others.
The hon. Member for Eastleigh raised the question of depreciation and he expressed some doubts about our method of doing it. However, I understood that he congratulated me in Committee on the method by which we were doing it after I had explained it in simple terms.
As for the accounts, I have already undertaken that we shall publish them for a data processing service on the same


lines as we do for the other main services and all the information for which hon. Members are asking will be there. All we need to consider is what practical purpose would be served by a Clause, once we had the words right, which obliged me to prepare separate accounts of a data processing service. The answer is very simple: it will serve no practical purpose whatever. If I thought that it could serve any purpose, I would be only too happy to take away this Clause, to knock it into shape and to offer hon. Members opposite something which would achieve their exact purpose but in different words. However, all that effort would be to no avail.
9.15 p.m.
I cannot accept the Clauses as they stand. However, I repeat that I am open to challenge in the House on so many occasions and I am open to challenge in the Press in a way which no private bureau is if I depart from my undertakings that the House has nothing to gain by devising a set of new statutory controls over this one isolated feature of Post Office business. In the knowledge that there is no difference of principle between the two sides of the House about the financial duty which a data processing service should bear or the kind of financial information which it should publish about itself, I ask the House to reject the Clauses.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I feel rather an intruder coming in on the Report stage of the Bill, not having been able, because of my other duties to the House, to be a member of the Standing Committee. However, I have studied from beginning to end all the proceedings in that Committee and I think that I am well aware of the attitude there expressed by the Postmaster-General himself, the Assistant Postmaster-General and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology.
I was hoping that this evening there would be a slight move in our direction by the right hon. Gentleman. From what had happened in Standing Committee, we already knew that the right hon. Gentleman was in broad agreement on practically all the main issues raised by my hon. Friends during those preceedings. We were hoping that he would feel obliged to try to agree to some form of words which would give legal force to

his undertaking. We all know that, with the best of intentions, Ministers sometimes give assurances to the House, but that if something is challenged outside, especially in the courts, and there is no provision in the Bill, whatever the Minister has said does not carry the force of law. This has been one of our difficulties all along. The right hon. Gentleman was very conciliatory tonight, but what he said more than justified the activities of my hon. Friends and myself in trying to draw more attention to this matter than the Press was apparently prepared to give it when the Postmaster-General first announced the Bill.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he was open to challenge. In his present capacity as Postmaster-General, that is largely true, but there is to be a consideration diminution in our right to challenge him if the proposed reorganisation of the Post Office takes place. We have to see the Bill in the context of the proposals in the White Paper, because the existing state of affairs in the Post Office will not prevail for very long. We have therefore to consider the Bill against the present and future organisation of the Post Office.

Mr. Edward Short: I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument. The issue between us is about the method of presenting accounts. Under corporation status, the Corporation would still have to present its accounts to the House.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that clear. Like my hon. Friends, I have studied the paragraphs of the White Paper dealing with the financial obligations of the Post Office. There is a reference to the financial and economic obligations of the nationalised industries in Cmnd. 1337. It would be quite wrong to try to broaden this into a general debate on the nationalised industries. All that I wish to do is to relate my remarks to the Post Office, and particularly to the data processing services which are proposed.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: My hon. Friend referred to the financial obligations. Paragraph 15 of the White Paper says:
The Corporation will inherit a number of public services which cannot be made financially viable …


I hope that my hon. Friend will refer to this possibility arising in three or four years' time.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. This had not escaped my notice, but I should like to refer to paragraph 33 of Command 1337 which says:
The nationalised industries are from their size and nature bound to play a major rôle in the economic life of the country.
I do not think anyone would dispute for a moment that the Bill will do that. It is not worth introducing unless it is.
They cannot, however, be regarded only as very large commercial concerns which may be judged mainly on their economic results; all have, although in varying degrees, wider obligations than commercial concerns in the private sector. The object of these proposals is to find for each industry or Board a reasonable balance between these two concepts.
The right hon. Gentleman, much to our relief, has stressed throughout the proceedings, and so have his hon. Friends, that this is intended to be a commercial service, and it is supposed to be a highly competitive one. We welcome this, but we have to recognise that it is only part of all the activities of the Post Office, and some parts of the activities receive rather more assistance, than, for example, telecommunications and data processing.
We are keen to lay down an obligation for a separate accounting because in the global total of the Post Office we have to bring in rather more forcefully the fact that certain matters which are vital in the national interest might have to be run uneconomically. If we are to preserve the right to competition, if we are to preserve the right of the individual firms concerned, it is vital to insist that the criteria against which the data processing service is to be run are those which apply in the private sector as well. This is our principal object, and this is why we feel that something ought to go into the Bill.
My hon. Friends have elaborated considerably on the arguments, and I do not intend to repeat what was said upstairs in Committee, beyond saying that I have read everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) and I support it. I think we must ensure that not only do we have a statement by the Minister, but that before the

Bill finally goes out of Parliament and becomes an Act the Postmaster-General will give one more thought to this matter, because I think that all that has been said tonight by the right hon. Gentleman and by my hon. Friends indicates that we all want the same thing. It is no good us wanting it if it is challenged outside, and found wanting, and a different sort of want. We want to make sure that everybody knows what the law is. If something is done by the Post Office or by anybody else outside which infringes the law, we want a categorical statement somewhere in the Statute which others can quote and use.
I think we have to recognise that if the Treasury is allowed a free run, an unfair measure of competition may creep in. This might happen as a result of the Post Office itself running its data processing fund, and being able to credit capital sums from the purchase of equipment, but if the depreciation is spread over 10 years this might—and I am only saying "might"—give unfair advantage over those outside.
That is a matter that the Postmaster-General might care to consider. I agree that if we had new Clause No. 2 new Clause No. 1 would be unnecessary, but it is important to provide some obligation not only to balance but, if possible, to make a profit. I hope that the Postmaster-General will agree that the first obligation—

Mr. Webster: My hon. Friend has quoted the Postmaster-General as saying that if new Clause No. 2 is accepted new Clause No. 1 is not necessary, but we do not appear to be getting any of the new Clauses.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: My hon. Friend may think that. I accept the agument that new Clause No. 2 covers all that we want in new Clause No. 1. It would be better if we could have new Clause No. 4 coupled with new Clause No. 1. It would then ensure at least a balance and, if possible, that the whole service was running profitably. It would write in the minimum obligation of a balance and give scope for a really profitable operation to be carried out on commercial lines. That is what we all want.
I agree that it is difficult now to decide exactly what should be the rate of interest, and so forth, but if we examine the


recent article in the Financial Times to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) referred, we can see that the Post Office, as compared with other nationalised industries, has been doing fairly well. We want to make sure, however, that no complacency sets in in the Post Office, because 8 per cent. is a low rate when we are dealing with a service rather than manufacturing—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must not discuss the Post Office in general. He has just drifted out of order.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I am not trying to make a general argument, Mr. Speaker, but this data processing is a service, and it is dangerous to take as a criterion a rate of interest arrived at by taking an amalgam of manufacturing and the provision of a service. This is essentially the provision of a service, and it seems to me that it should give a higher return than 8 per cent. I agree that to fix a figure tonight would be absurd, but I hope that the Postmaster-General will give further thought to the matter before the Bill goes to another place, and see if there is not yet a way in which he can write something into the Bill.
With the approval of my hon. Friends, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1.—(EXPENSES OF DATA PROCESSING SERVICE.)

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 12, at the end to insert:
(2) After subsection (3) of section 1 of the said Act of 1961 there shall be inserted the following new subsection:—
'(3A) In determining the priority to be given to payments out of the Fund as between sums to be paid in or in connection with the provision to other persons of services and facilities for the communication or transmission of data for processing by computer and the provision by him of services and facilities for such processing, the Postmaster General shall give an absolute priority to the first and shall not make any payments in or in connection with the exercise of his functions in relation to the second unless and until such provision has been made for the first as is sufficient to meet all the reasonable requirements of persons providing services and facilities for such processing'.

The object of the Amendment is to stress that the real duty of the Post Office in respect of data processing is to provide the lines of communications required by those who cannot provide the service by themselves. That is the first obligation, flowing from the whole nature of the Post Office as we know it today. We are trying to provide a priority in the exercise of the powers which the Postmaster-General is seeking under the Bill.
Here again, the argument has already been made upstairs, and I do not want to repeat it, but the more the Postmaster-General looks into the matter the more he will realise that with the vigour that he now exercises throughout the computer industry the demand, as a result of private enterprise—both British and foreign—will be for more lines of communication to be provided by the Post Office. We do not want to see the Postmaster-General using the Bill as a means of borrowing further funds under the 1961 Act and using them for a purpose which could probably often be better served by private enterprise.
The Postmaster-General has satisfied me, at least, that the principal reason for introducing the Bill was not—as I feared when he made his first announcement—simply that he had over-invested in capital outlay and was finding it difficult to make that capital bring in a return.
The right hon. Gentleman has satisfied me that that was not the principal object. Nevertheless, he ought not to use this service to try to elbow out of the way private firms, very often with consideraable British investment, which are providing first-class employment, often under better conditions than prevail in many other places. They ought not to be elbowed out of the way with the somewhat monopolistic rights that the Post Office inevitably has, when these enterprises are providing the sort of employment and good remuneration that I have spoken of, and when they require the assistance of the Post Office in providing the line of communications that he regards as his first obligation.
Nor do we feel it right to allow this data processing service to diminish, in the Postmaster-General's mind, the need for him to press on with telecommunications and the ordinary work of the Post Office. I believe that his heart is in the


right place. All that we are trying to do is to give him the fortifications, by writing something into the Bill to entitle him to do this, and be proud of doing it.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Webster: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), who seems to have read the OFFICIAL REPORT of the whole of this excellent Standing Committee. The purpose that we think the Post Office should carry out, which this Amendment seeks to carry out, is the provision of the line. It is something about which I have spoken in Committee and I do not intend to go any further now. My feeling is that the Post Office, with its tremendous increase in its borrowing powers, is failing to provide the necessary line.
It is far too dramatic to say "failing" but if one goes from a waiting list of 440,000 telephones in 1949, to 40,000 in 1964 and then it more than doubles to over 96,000 last year, it would appear that the line is not being made. The Post Office should make this its special function. There is great extra borrowing power, but it does not appear to be used for this purpose.
We want to get the Post Office to concentrate on this part of its activities. It has to be faced that one is always suspicious of Government Departments. It is about the healthiest reaction possible. There is a suspicion that this investment has resulted in excess capacity in the Post Office. It is impossible to have a capital investment without, at some stage, having excess capacity but people are very reluctant to express this suspicion in public. My hon. Friend said that he never thought that there was any such excess capacity, or at least if there was he did not think that the Postmaster-General was conniving at it.
I accept that it is not being connived at, but with the best will, and the best management in the world, it is quite impossible not to have either excess capacity or surplus capacity. If one has neither, one is in the perfect dream world of Mr. Micawber, when something will happen tomorrow.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I was not suggesting that there was not excess capacity. I was simply saying that I am now satisfied that the Postmaster-General is not

seeking to introduce the Bill solely because he has over-capitalised.

Mr. Webster: I accept that. But there is always this suspicion. If there is massive investment and massive capital equipment, one is not likely to get a reasonable factor of use in the first year of the equipment. In some cases there will be excess capacity and in some cases not enough capacity.
Take the example where massive investment and tremendous borrowing powers have not been adapted to providing a line for these purposes. A computer bureau or a series of banks in a consortium or a series of industrial companies or one big industrial company may have a computer and wish to set up a line from the computer to the terminal points in various parts of the organisation. The Post Office may say, "We are very sorry, but there is no line available for 12 months or 18 months." The reason for that is that the second part of the Clause has not been carried out by the Post Office—
until such provision has been made for the first as is sufficient to meet all the reasonable requirements of persons providing services and facilities for such processing".
This can be deliberate, or through mismanagement or misadventure. A big bank or a group of banks or a bureau seek to bring this service into action, go to the Post Office and ask for the line. The Post Office reply, "We will look into it." Later, they say, "We are sorry, but we cannot give you a link for 12 months or 18 months." As a consequence, there is frustration because of mismanagement, because money has not been used on the provision of the line. This may be due to mismanagement or to sinister causes, although I certainly do not impute any sinister reasons to the right hon. Gentleman, or it may be due to inadequacy of forecasting requirements.
In other circumstances, the Post Office may say, "There is excess capacity in this region and we can provide the service ourselves." As a result, the private bureau is driven out of business. This is what we seek to guard against—the non-allocation of finance to the service which the Post Office should be providing, which is the common carrier service of those who are seeking to use it as their customers.
Again, there may be bad buying procedures or inadequate manufacturing capacity. The Post Office may be asked by a computer bureau or firm to join the link. The firm may ask for coaxial cable. The cost has been quoted to me as between £1,000 a mile and £3,000 a mile. Unless he has very substantial reserves behind him, nobody can compete. He cannot accept those terms, and he is unable to go into business. That is because the Post Office is failing in its function economically to provide the line. If there is surplus capacity, as we have said, the Post Office can say, "We can provide the service through the data processing".
In this case, it is falling down on its basic function as a nationalised industry which we all respect—the function of providing the line and the communication between the centres where the information is being provided. We appreciate that the Postmaster-General is a highly reasonable man. We hope that he will accept this as a right and proper function for the Post Office in the modern technological society.
My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) has put the argument extremely well because this Amendment deals with priorities, rather than an Amendment which was not called in Committee and has not been called on Report defining exactly what the Post Office should and should not do. Throughout the Standing Committees debates and on Second Reading we on this side felt that the Post Office should decide what it was in business to do, and then make quite certain it did it well. If the Post Office does too much—and this is a lesson from private industry—it will find itself doing too many things, and not doing one activity well. It might have every success in other fields, but fall down on newer activities in data transmission and the consultancy service.
This Amendment deals with priorities. If we cannot limit the Post Office to doing what it ought to do, we must ask what its priorities are. The Amendment asks the Post Office to make quite certain that it provides a transmission link, whether by live coaxial cable of by microwave. My hon. Friend outlined various examples of the way in which the Post Office, which is running with the hares and hunting with

the hounds in providing a service for its competitors, will inevitably be in a position of advantage.
If the Post Office has its own computers in one town and terminal links in another, it will make quite certain that they are connected properly, and at an early date. If it is a question of giving a faster line to take several thousand bits per second, as the expression is, as against 1,000 or 2,000 on conventional lines, will it not give the faster line to its own data computer advisory service? If that does not happen, I will be most surprised.
The Postmaster-General will not make the decision. The Post Officials themselves, the Post Office staff running the data processing services or the advisory service will say, "We have the computers and we have the terminal equipment. We now want these connected with the best lines giving the fastest and most reliable service." In that way, inevitably, the Post Office, providing an advisory service, will favour its own service rather than that of its customers, who are also its competitors.
It is therefore reasonable in this Amendment to stress the need for giving priority to this activity in which the Post Office ought to engage in order to ensure that all users of data processing equipment and all those who will use data transmission shall have the best facilities available, and shall not play second fiddle to the Post Office and its own data computer advisory service.

Mr. Webster: Does my hon. Friend consider that the modulator-demodulator should come within the mandatory right of the Post Office, or that bureaux could supply this modulator-demodulator terminal equipment?

Mr. J. H. Osborn: Terminal equipment is another problem altogether, but it is essential that the terminal equipment, where it is available, should be provided by the bureaux, and that they should be allowed to do this.
I hope that the Postmaster-General will refer to priorities in supplying terminal equipment. He referred to them in the Standing Committee, but will he make quite certain in his review that if outside agencies wish to provide their own


terminal equipment—within the specification, of course, laid down by the Post Office—that will be possible? And will the right hon. Gentleman reaffirm the assurances he gave in Standing Committee?

9.45 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short: I hope that hon. Members who support and have spoken to this Amendment will realise that it could prevent the data processing services from operating. That would be the consequence of passing the Amendment; that is what it amounts to. Suppose that a private bureau in the west of England were to ask for a Post Office circuit between two towns and could not have it for several weeks, the whole Post Office processing service would as a mater of law have to stop operating until that circuit had been supplied. If this occurred, and it could, no customer anywhere would entrust his business to the Post Office knowing that at any moment it might become illegal for the Post Office to serve him.
We have to be fair to the Post Office as well as to private bureaux. While I am bound to oppose the Amendment because clearly it would defeat the whole object of the Bill, I understand the idea behind it and I realise the fear behind it. It is one of the three or four major fears which have arisen throughout discussion of the Bill, a fear that the Post Office should embark on a new activity while it cannot meet every reasonable demand on its present services. There would be very little progress if we always waited for perfection in one thing before we ever started another, in the Post Office or in life generally.
But there are, I think, two valid and relevant assurances that I can give the House to help to allay this fear. The first is that I have no intention whatever of allowing a data processing service to flourish to the detriment of the other Post Office services. The telecommunications service, which is the one mainly at issue here, is steadily growing and we move closer and closer to the time when every standard facility will be available on demand. A data processing service will not interrupt this process. The second point, and I can say this very emphatically indeed, is that no steps will ever be taken in the Post Office to impede

in any way the facilities needed by data processing bureaux that are in competition with us.
These, I think, are the only ways in which I can assuage fears which I know to be real. For the rest, if the House were persuaded that the Post Office ought not to run a data processing service in the neat future, the remedy would be to reject the Bill, but the House has already agreed on Second Reading to the principle of the G.P.O providing this service. Because of that I could not at this stage ask the House to approve the Bill with a Clause which would prevent the service from operating.

Mr. David Price: I am sure my hon. Friends are grateful to the Postmaster-General for the assurances he has given. They go a long way to deal with the proper fears some of my hon. Friends have had. I make this final point at this stage. This is not only a matter of considering the availability of lines at this moment but of looking to the future. I should like to talk with the Postmaster-General some time about the whole problem of microwaves, how he feels minded to deal with this subject and whether he feels that this is something on which he will have a complete monopoly or deal with it slightly differently by being the licensing authority and allocating what he needs for his own service and what might be available to other people. This raises the whole question of a firm such as Extel and where it fits in.
All the information I have is that within what we call a real time network, in both the capital costs and the operating costs of such network—this will be done under the Bill by the Post Office and people outside—the proportionate cost of the transmission on the communications side is a great deal higher than it has been hitherto in simple E.D.P. services. The information that I am getting from the United States shows that where a real time network has developed and where the geographical points are farther apart, the proportionate costs of transmission go up substantially. I know of a case where 50 per cent. of the cost results from running a real time network.
With those thoughts, and thanking the Postmaster-General—

Mr. Edward Short: Before the hon. Gentleman resumes his seat, may I say


that I shall be very happy to arrange these discussions. We still have to have some discussions on confidentiality with my officials, so that I shall be very happy to arrange this.

Mr. David Price: I am grateful to the Postmaster-General for that. In view of his undertaking, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is not for the hon. Gentleman to seek leave to withdraw. It is for his hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), who will probably take the hint.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In view of the glorious unanimity of the House, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2.—(OBLIGATION OF SECRECY.)

Mr. J. H. Osborn: I beg to move Amendment No. 7, in page 1, line 20, at the end to insert:
(2) Information (not being information in the public domain) obtained by any such officer in the course of the exercise by the Postmaster General of any of his functions (other than that relating to the provision of such services or facilities as are mentioned in the said section 1) shall not without the consent of the person giving the information or to whom it relates be used by any such officer in the course of the provision of the said services or facilities.
Towards the end of our debate on the last Amendment reference was made to confidentiality and secrecy, and I am therefore glad to have the opportunity of moving this Amendment. The Postmaster-General, after the Second Reading, appreciated some of the anxieties not only of this House but of the country at large, and he made a gesture in Standing Committee which brought in Clause 2 of the Bill as it now stands. The only difficulty is that we do not believe that this goes far enough.
I should like to see that information obtained by an officer, not only in connection with such services or facilities as are mentioned, but services or facilities for the communication of transmission of data
shall not, without the consent of that perosn, be disclosed by that officer.
I should like this Clause to deal with other matters, and in particular, that information shall not

without the consent of the person giving the information or to whom it relates be used by any such officer in the course of the provision of the said services
to be made available to outside parties.
We raised this matter in Standing Committee. At one stage, as reported in column 82 on 15th June, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology said:
Disclosure is not permitted, of course, to any Government Department, any more than it is permitted to any other users. It is information in the broadest sense—that is to say, not simply in relation to the content of the information itself, but in relation to, possibly, its volume and its frequency of operation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B; 15th June, 1967, c. 82.]
That is information within a Government Department.
We are faced with the fact that data banks, let alone the transmission facilities, are going to be a feature of this modern age. Data banks are bound to come. The data bank is the putting of information on some form of magnetic tape or, as we know now, the disc or other random access memory. This means, whatever the facility, that a vast amount of information about individuals and companies will be placed on data banks. These data banks will have information which is confidential to the individual or confidential to the company. The Post Office will be running the service.
Here is an example from commerce. It is possible that the Customs and the airlines—there has been some Press reference to this—will want facilities of this kind, and the Post Office providing the data processing service for this purpose, for a Government agency, will have the information. Mail order companies and commercial companies will want to know about individual and other companies, and they will want information which is stored in data banks.

Mr. Edward Short: I am sorry to intervene, but we are not discussing that aspect of the matter. The Amendment specifically excludes it, the words being
(other than that relating to the provision of such services or facilities as are mentioned in the said section 1)".
All we are concerned with here is the transmission facilities. According to the hon. Gentleman's own Amendment, we are not concerned with the information stored.

Mr. Osborn: That is a question of interpretation. It was definitely the intention behind the Amendment to cover the whole matter, and, if I may put it to you, Mr. Speaker, I think that we should deal with the principle here.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to help the hon. Member, but he can deal only with what is in the Amendment.

Mr. Osborn: I accept that, Mr. Speaker.
Let us say that individuals working for the Post Office will have information of value. As matters stand at present, information could be provided to outside individuals. It could be provided to companies which would value the information. It is immaterial whether the information is collected, being transmitted from a bank to a user who collects it, or whether it is in a data bank. We are dealing with the supply of information available to employees of the Post Office to outside parties. I ask the Postmaster-General to accept that that is the intention behind the Amendment. Whether it is information colleced from a data bank or in transmission, is immaterial.

Mr. Webster: We are concerned with the secrecy of the information in the whole service. If there is a breakdown in the multiplexer and the information is fed into the wrong hands, secrecy is completely broken. It is the information that we are talking about.

Mr. Edward Short: Mr. Edward Short rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have an intervention upon an intervention. The right hon. Gentleman can intervene in a moment or two.

Mr. Osborn: I give way to the right hon. Gentleman so that we may have his observation.

Mr. Short: The Amendment deals with
the exercise by the Postmaster-General of any of his functions (other than that relating to the provision of such services or facilities as are mentioned in the said Section 1)".
Section 1 is data processing. The Amendment in terms specifically excludes the confidentiality of information.

Mr. Osborn: I shall not pursue that, but I direct attention to the word "information". Perhaps we may leave the brackets out, so that it reads:

Information … shall not without the consent of the person giving the information or to whom it relates be used by any such officer in the course of the provision of the said services or facilities.
How that information is obtained is immaterial. It is information in the hands of individuals who are employees of the Post Office. The Amendment, for technical reasons, may need clarification, but it is definitely relevant, because information held by the Post Office as a result of the services which it is now operating would be extremely valuable to outside commercial interests. If the Post Office decided that information held by it concerning its outside clients or individuals could be sold to outside interested parties, this would be a departure which we should deplore. Therefore, I urge the Postmaster-General to give attention to the sentiments behind the Amendment. He may duck it on Report, but I assure him that it is an issue which will be of vital concern before the Bill passes into law.

It being Ten o'clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on Government Business may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed.—[Mr. Gourlay.]

Question again proposed.

Mr. Webster: I am grateful to the Postmaster-General, because he has helped us a great deal. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) was developing a very reasoned case. However, I am sure that he would agree that no one suspects that any regular member of the Post Office is likely to do anything of this sort. We are trying to be doubly careful. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he will have something to say on the subject of confidentiality, and we are grateful for that.
We accept that the processing side is excluded from the Amendment. However, what will happen if there is a breakdown in the multiplexer? I am sure that my hon. Friend could explain it better than but the multiplexer is that which goes between the computer and the modulator-demodulator. We are all aware that it is possible to give a


wrong number, and multiplexers are not foolproof at present. This is the transmission which my hon. Friend is concerned with in his Amendment.
If it should happen that there is a breakdown between the modulator-demodulator and the multiplexer and a data bank is raided by mistake—I appreciate that data banks are exempted from the Amendment—once it gets into the circuit, the data bank is ruined for further use and the information gets into the public ken.
We are not yet certain that a multiplexer can do its selective activities with the accuracy which we would wish to see. Again, I refer to the Report of the Nationalised Industries Committee where it deals with S.T.D. That is a very modern development in which Britain leads most of the Western world, but where there are still 8 per cent. of wrong numbers. It is true that bad dialling results in 30 per cent. of that 8 per cent., but, as the hon. Member for Bristol, North East (Mr. Dobson) pointed out, there is a very fine play in the West End of London called, "Sorry, Wrong Number". If it happened that the multiplexer was at fault and gave the wrong selection, and the "Sorry, Wrong Number" incident occurred, the information would be in the transmission line. That is what, with great wisdom, sagacity and accuracy, my hon. Friend is concerned to deal with in his Amendment.
The hon. Member for Bristol, North-East said that in the play it was the right number. This again shows that collusion might enter into the matter. It is a point about which we want to be very careful. We need great precision here. In an expanding service it is easy not to properly vet [Interruption.] Did my hon. Friend wish to intervene?

Dr. Reginald Bennett: I was just drawing the attention of my hon. Friend to a split infinitive which I deplored.

Mr. Webster: I apologise for my hon. Friend's lack of tolerance of my split infinitive.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Speaker is an old school master. He will not tolerate this, however.

Mr. Webster: Up with that he will not put, Mr. Speaker. I accept what you say, and am very grateful.
There is the risk with this modern machinery that the multiplexer could go wrong between the modulator-demodulator and the data bank, and the information could go into the circuit. It is possible that with a staff of 1,200 in the very near future they will not all be thoroughly vetted. What we ask is that there should be a vow of secrecy. It is difficulty to precisely define—

Dr. Bennett: Oh.

Mr. Webster: It is difficult to know whether the line between transmission and processing is drawn at the modulator-demodulator or at the multiplexer. This is a matter on which the House will wish to hear from the Postmaster-General, the Assistant Postmaster-General or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology, who has vanished into space tonight, having assisted us magnificently in Committee. I hope that this very right and precisely drawn Amendment will be accepted.

Mr. Edward Short: I found the Amendment rather difficult to understand but I tried to paraphrase it, and I think that we then see that it means something like this: private information obtained in the course of his official duties by an officer of the Post Office who is not concerned with data processing may not be used by any officer of the Post Office for the purposes of the N.D.P.S. except with the consent of the person who gave the information or to whom the information refers. I think that that is really the intention. Although the Amendment is very obscure, the intention is relatively simple. But I believe that implemention of the intention by legislation is impossible. It is, of course, true that the argument about advantage may be set up. It has been made more than once, but I think that the alleged advantages which could be gained by N.D.P.S. would in practice be found to be illusory.
What is being attempted here is to carry legislation into the internal organisation of a business in a quite unprecedented way, with an intention, moreover, which it would be impossible to enforce. The


intention appears to be that the separate data processing service—and I stress once again that it will be an entirely separate service—shall not in any circumstances glean from any of the other services of the Post Office any fact which data processing could turn to its commercial advantage; say, for instance, from the telecommunications service, that a particular computer bureau has made an inquiry about a data processing line. That is what the Amendment is about, I hope.
But unless the implication is that the telecommunications service will deliberately hold up the provision of the line, it is difficult to see what advantage N.D.P.S. could take from knowledge which happened to come into its possession in this way. If there is delay in provision of the circuit, it would affect both the private bureau and N.D.P.S. If there is no delay, then the private bureau will obviously be in business before the N.D.P.S. could be.
I hope that during the debates on the Bill I have already effectively disposed of the suggestion that the telecommunications service of the Post Office would attempt to hold up the private bureaux in the interests of N.D.P.S. I refute that suggestion completely. The telecommunications service will be just as anxious to do business with the private bureaux as with N.D.P.S. The use which N.D.P.S. could possibly make of any information which happened to come into its possession is clearly dependent upon there being enough time for N.D.P.S. to be able to take decisive advantage of this knowledge. This possibility depends on the notice required for a circuit. The time period required for computer schemes, be it setting up a bureau or programming a customer for a bureau, is a lengthy one, and the time required to supply circuits is shortening the whole time.
I have already told the House that we aim to double the size of the trunk network during the next five years. Slow and medium speed local lines can usually be had with little delay, as can long lines on many routes. There are at present provision difficulties on some routes, particularly long ones, which we aim to clear within the next year or two. Wide-

band circuits, which nearly always involve some special cable provision, will always require some notice, but if there is delay for this reason, this will bite just as hard on N.D.P.S. as on the private bureau, which would be first in the queue anyway.
Thus, the only practical result, as far as I can see, which N.D.P.S. could make of this kind of information is in a negative sense. For instance, if the information pointed to a firm having an intention to open a bureau in a town where N.D.P.S. were not represented, N.D.P.S. might decide not to open a bureau in that town. This would obviously in no way harm the private firm. Indeed, it would help it. This is the sort of negative way in which N.D.P.S. might make use of information which came into its hands.
Finally, however carefully the Amendment were drafted, it would be impossible to make it watertight. I give another example. It would be quite proper for an officer in the telecommunications service, having received a request for a particular line for which he would have to make special provision, then to canvass other possible users of the line, including N.D.P.S., so that he might decide how much provision to make. The mere receipt of such inquiry by an alert management could be enough to defeat the intention of the Amendment.
I hope that I have convinced the House of the impossibility of legislating along these lines. I therefore ask the House to reject the Amendment.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I think that the Postmaster-General got it right in his interpretation of what the Amendment meant. But I think we have to read it in the context of the Clause as it stands now. What we are trying to do is to ensure as best we can that, whether the information comes from inside or, as in the Amendment, from outside, in the actual data processing work done by officers of the Post Office there is adequate security to ensure that the information goes only to the people who ought to have it and even to them only with the permission of the people from whom the information came. I think that the effect of the subsection read with the original


one or with an amended one would have achieved this.
As long as the Postmaster-General has in mind the need for security on these two fronts I am certain that we can accept his offer to have private talks about the whole security problem, which he has

twice invited us to do. We are very grateful to him. On that I advise my hon. Friend to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
We have had some very interesting and informative discussions of this proposal. If I had a regret, it would be that, in the pressure of debates, the basic purpose of the Bill has become somewhat overladen by one or two important aspects which have emerged. With the indulgence of the House, I should like to address myself to the aspects.
The use of what has been described as the most important invention since the wheel—the first realisation was effected in this country by Charles Babbage about 100 years ago—has not found as widespread an acceptance in this country as in some others. The Government believe, and I feel sure that there will be few dissenting voices in the House, that accelerated and more widespread use of the computer could only be to the benefit of economy.
The Government have already set up the National Computing Centre, which should make a considerable contribution to the solution of training and programming problems, and the new National Data Processing Service will provide the facilities by which working jobs will be brought on to the computer much more easily than now.
The service will be designed to make a profit, because the making of a profit is a good index of efficiency in a competitive situation. But the basic motive is to increase the spread of computing. That is why the service must not be monopolistic. If it were, it would defeat my purpose in setting it up.
We have now to enlist the support of every one who can contribute to the basic aim and for this reason we are opening the service to all comers. What we shall be trying to do is to provide a basis, a framework, from within which the development of computing in this country may go ahead as fast as possible, taking advantage of all the special skills we can find and all the most modern technological developments as they become available. I think that there will be a steady drawing together of private enterprise and the service to the mutual advantage of both.
The debates turned basically on the twin themes of confidentiality and unfair competition. The point made about the need for utter confidentiality of information entrusted to the service was an extremely valid and very important one. I went so far as to say that it was one of the major problems facing society in the technological age into which we are moving. The Bill has been amended to include a Clause which places an absolute embargo on the disclosure of such information unless with the consent of the owner or in response to a process of law. There has been a very proper concern amongst hon. Members to guard against abuse of the information entrusted to the service and I hope that they will now feel that this has been achieved.
I hope that I have also convinced hon. Members that there will not be unfair competition. The basic aim is to get more people into computing, not to keep them out of it. The service will be an independent one, independently managed. We are now reorganising the managerial structure of the Post Office to ensure this. It will not have authority or responsibility in the matter of providing lines or apparatus for data transmission. That remains the function of the telecommunications service.
The accounts of the service will be separately presented to Parliament. Its charges will include the full overheads of the service and its basic charges will be published for every one to see. This will continue when the Post Office becomes an independent corporation.
I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for the courteous way in which they have discussed the Bill and for the valuable points they have made. I have been in this House for 16 years and I have rarely been concerned with a Bill in which the discussion throughout has been so consistently constructive.
This service is essentially building for the future. Its early growth is likely to be restricted by the finding and training of the skilled personnel necessary to develop it. I think that the provision of a channel within which all our efforts may be directed towards a new goal is of itself a worth-while achievement, and I hope that the House will now join me in wishing the project success.

10.19 p.m.

Mr. David Price: I agree strongly with what the right hon. Gentleman said in his early remarks about the need in this country to make the full use of the opportunities which the advent of the computer puts before us. I am tempted to follow the Postmaster-General into some of his historical references. If one looks round the Chamber at the moment the words "spare capacity" take on a slightly different meaning from that which has been used in the Bill.
I should like to respond to the Postmaster-General's closing remarks by saying that we on this side in the House and in Committee upstairs have received great courtesy from him and from the Assistant Postmaster-General and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology.
The Bill appeared to many when it was first published as a simple enabling Bill, but the introduction of these E.D.P. services by the Post Office is a matter of major national importance. I suggest, with all humility, that but for the vigilance of my hon. Friends the scale and implications of these new services would not have been properly discussed. I believe that we have fulfilled our proper rôle as an Opposition in ensuring that the full implications of the Bill were properly discussed.
The Press has certainly benefited from our continuing debates. It is not unfair to make the point that the serious Press has recently taken a very keen interest, but only in the later stages of the Bill. It may be that for once Parliament, which is so frequently abused by outsiders, has in fact been rather ahead of interests outside. I believe that our debates have been constructive and worth while. Dare I even suggest that the Post Office has benefited from our debates, even though it has not always agreed with all our points.
We have not succeeded from this side of the House in getting the Bill altered, but we have received some important undertakings from the Postmaster-General which we know he will honour. They come under five headings: accountability, concern about unfair competition, the question of confidentiality, the

problem of restrictive practices, and the question of standards. I have also raised in our general discussions the problem of the future and the key importance of the transmission side to a really efficient network.
Are these undertakings binding on the right hon. Gentleman's successors? He has given them in such a categorical form that any successor—we are not for a moment wishing to see him move to other fields in the near future—would find it very difficult not to be bound by the undertakings which the right hon. Gentleman has given.
We on this side of the House are particularly grateful for the Postmaster-General's offer on confidentiality. I did not feel it was proper to press the point until we had finished all stages of the Bill, but we can now take this up. I hope that my proposal in Standing Committee—that when the Post Office has got these services started it may have sufficient confidence to organise some annual colloquia or conferences to discuss future problems with users, with manufacturers, bureaux and all concerned—will be adopted. As the Postmaster-General rightly observed, this must be a partnership and I hope that, having disposed of the Bill, we may occasionally have an opportunity to discuss these matters together in the spirit in which we have discussed the Bill.
I should like to add to what the Postmaster-General said that, although we had and still have some doubts about how far the Post Office should go in providing these services, we are determined that where they are provided they should be provided in the spirit with which the Postmaster-General has proposed them to us.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. Webster: I endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price). When I walked upstairs today I had the pleasure of admiring the Postmaster-General's paintings. They were very pleasant and they made the whole atmosphere look very pleasant indeed.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Press Gallery, I am sure, would appreciate if if the hon. Gentleman would speak up.

Mr. Webster: I should like the Press Gallery to know that I admired the Postmaster-General's paintings. They were very pleasant and they gave an atmosphere of comfort and ease. There was one of a young lady and young gentlemen sitting on a seat, very friendly —[Interruption.] Was it not by the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Webster: I hope I was not out of order. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the young lady and the young gentleman were not out of order.

Mr. Speaker: I was calling to order the hon. Gentleman who was interrupting. I am beginning to wonder whether I should have asked the hon. Gentleman to speak up.

Mr. Webster: I apologise, Mr. Speaker. You asked me to speak up and I was endeavouring so to do.

Mr. Edward Short: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I never paint ladies.

Mr. Webster: I will not get out of order and discuss painted ladies with the Postmaster-General. However, I noticed that the atmosphere under his guidance today and because of his very great reasonableness was very pleasant. Things did not go quite so well when he was not present in Standing Committee and we had the rather more sinister thoughts of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology and the Department of which he is an important and sponsoring Minister. It was notable that he was not here today, so that we got through the remaining stages of the Bill very quickly. The Parliamentary Secretary has just walked into the Chamber. I am very glad to see him and I hope that he will make a thoughtful speech.
Our argument, and it is the contention to which I stick, is that the Post Office should provide the lines. In the "thirteen wasted years" when my party was in power, the waiting list for telephone lines was decimated from 440,000 to 44,000, while during the term of the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessor—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is experienced enough a Parliamentarian

to know that we are on the Third Reading of a Bill which has to do with data processing.

Mr. Webster: I apologise if I have stepped out of line. The Post Office is now to go into the processing of data, a move which we have resisted. I am very frightened about it. I believe that the correct procedure would have been for the Post Office to provide transmission lines between communications centres, although for its own purposes it could have set up a computer service which would also have been useful to the nationalised industries. Organisations like B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. and the aircraft industry and the nationalised industries and the newly nationalised steel industry will undoubtedly greatly need the transmission of information among themselves and it might well have been right for the Post Office to process that information. However, it is difficult to establish what should be the management objective in a nationalised industry and thus to establish adequate criteria for the processing of data. Is it to be regarded as a public service without the criterion of efficiency and without the criterion of adequate costing?
We know very well that the Postmaster-General is a reasonable man. It has been suggested that he may be translated to higher spheres. I do not know whether they will be the Foreign Office or where they will be, but if we lose the right hon. Gentleman, we shall lose the greatest assurance for the safeguards which we have sought to write into the Bill. As with the laws of the Medes and the Persians, the wording of our proposals has often been found wanting, although the right hon. Gentleman has frequently conceded the principle. Nevertheless, he has not produced his own Amendments with alternative wording, and if he is translated to some other function, his assurances will have no force in a court of law, and this is the danger.
We are now to have a system in which the Post Office will move from the simple transmission of information to the processing of information, and the safeguards which we have sought have all been connected with this change.
It can be done with the nationalised industries. It is probably right that it


should be done as between the nationalised industries, but, having set it up, having quarrelled about it, not very vigorously, but with some interest, in Committee, what will be the criterion of management by which this new process will be judged?
Will it be by absolute cost? Will it be by maximum profitability? To what extent will this be blurred by the need to provide a public service? But if we provide a public service, we expect to be paid for it. These are all reasonable thoughts, and reasonable anxieties which we are right to express when the Bill is being given its Third Reading.
I come back to what my hon. Friends have said about the Orwellian possibilities of the provision of information, the processing of information, by the State. I think that this is why the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology has been given leave of absence this evening. I have here a small book which contains the thoughts, not of Chairman Mao, but of the hon. Gentleman, in which he says that the common good
must be expressed in some mind of common ownership and control. But it does mean that the analysis must take hold of the problems of today.
This is data processing. This is the State intervening in it.
He then says:
… the attack on abuses will remain ineffective until something like the network model"—
which is what we are setting up tonight, having given the authority for data processing—
is available to provide a framework within which the trading practices of individual firms and the relationships between firms can be properly examined and corrected as a part of normal trading activity.
This is "Big Brother" in a big way. This is the almighty State, and those who wish to control every aspect of our lives will now have the power to do so at their fingertips. The transmission of data is right and reasonable, but when we get to the stage of processing it for an almighty planning machine, what will be the consequences?
The hon. Gentleman goes on to say:
An air of benevolence and a gloss of inefficiency are no substitutes for an adequate scrutiny of their trading activities, investment and production. The idea of social accountability should be given some precision.

Those are the thoughts of one of the principal sponsors of the Bill, and I know that he is not in discord with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology.
Under the heading of "dealing with problems" there is this interesting statement:
… if necessary, to show the firm how to use the information it gives and receives, in conjunction with its knowledge of its own business, to make better decisions;"—
this is the State saying that this is necessary with the information that is received—
to identify where intervention will be needed to reconcile the interests of the firm with a wider interest"—
Who will decide this? Not the Postmaster-General, but the Minister of Technology. He is the person about whom we are worried. He and his Joint Parliamentary Secretary have been sent to the cinema to get them out of the way—
and to bring the appropriate instruments into action.
The Postmaster-General and his hon. Friend are the instruments which are being brought into action. We accept their assurances, but we will not always have them here to protect us. This is the Orwellian danger which some people may think is being over-dramatised. When we shout about these things, we are told that our fears and anxieties are groundless and stupid, but it is those who accept that they are stupid, and are not vigilant, who find that their opportunties for vigilance are removed. This is the danger.
The danger is not present at the moment. It will not be here for five years, but in a totalitarian State the situation could occur in which this method of data processing could mean planning by a dictatorship, and the machine governing man, not man governing the machine. This is what the House is here to prevent.

10.34 p.m.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) has covered much of the ground that I would have liked to cover, and as he has done it so well I shall try to deal with other matters.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) implied that


Parliament was probably ahead of public opinion in this matter. It can be said of the Opposition that we are perhaps a little more sensitive and alert, or we imagined possibilities and dangers which may or may not exist in future.
There is no doubt that it was intended that the Bill should come in like a mouse. It crept in on one morning sitting. I genuinely believe that its sponsors hoped that it might get its Second Reading and Committee stage on the Floor of the House very quickly as a non-controversial Bill and then disappear on to the Statute Book without anyone realising what had happened.
Certain Members of the Opposition realised that this was a major Bill the importance of which cannot now be realised by most people, including responsible people, but which will affect us in five or ten years' time. We are legislating now for what, for the ordinary man in the street, is a hypothetical situation which he does not understand, but what, to the better-informed is something that has already happened in the United States of America and in other countries, and will rapidly happen in this country, but in a form which could take a sinister shape.
If the Bill came in like a mouse we can claim that it will lumber through to another place like an elephant. It will leave its mark as it goes through the Lobby to another place. It is right that we should have posed hypothetical questions, and it is right that the questions should have been posed not only in the House but by the Press. My hon. Friend referred to various Press comments. The Economist referred to the Bill's slipping through. I hope that that publication will give due credit for what the Opposition have done to make certain that the mouse takes on a shape and character that the people can comprehend.
The Times produced a leader on Wednesday, 21st June, making the observation that
Critics were quick to point out that the G.P.O., providing line services that connect other, competing, computer bureaux, would have unique commercial advantages …
It tended to criticise the critics, but went on to say,
Clearly the Post Office should be allowed to engage in any business that coheres with

its main activities; it should be encouraged to engage in activities that force it to behave like a business.
The Times followed this up with a leader today which referred to the importance of our deliberations. It said, of the description of the Bill,
Behind that innocuous phrase lies a major extension of the role of the Post Office.
The Times, in its Business Supplement, which is a medium of considerable importance, has reported in detail on the nature of the Bill, and it is right that informed opinion should think about the consequences of what we have debated over the last few days.
The Postmaster-General referred to confidentiality and secrecy. I am the first to welcome the fact that there are to be discussions between both parties on this aspect. Apart from the Parliamentary Secretary's publication and the fact that the Post Office and Government Departments will have an immense amount of information about individuals and companies; apart from the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) pointed out in Committee that the Prymaster-General would have his task made much easier, and apart from references to "Big Brother", it is our case that apart from the political tone behind the Bill confidentiality—as in the United States of America—is the real problem that is being discussed at present.
In Standing Committee I referred to some of the matters. In column 92 I referred a publication "The Nation's Business" for November, 1966, entitled "Push-button snooping." This contained the fears, expressed in the United States, not because the United States was operating the system, but the fears about the method of data storage. I also said that
The Federal Budget Bureau wants to set up a computerised data bank to centralise the welter of information about you and your business that's available to the Government.
I went on to refer to the fact that I had been on an I.B.M. all-party tour—by coincidence, not design. Reference was made in Standing Committee at column 95 to a statement by Dr. Emmuel R. Piore, Vice-President and Chief Scientist of the International Business Machines Corporation, before the


Sub-committee on Administrative Practice and Procedure on the Judiciary of the United States Senate, I quote this again, because these problems are concerning America today. I outlined some of the possibilities of industrial gangsterdom, tapping in to data banks in the United States.
These are possibilities that might concern us here. It is right that these fears of push-button snooping and the dangers arising should be raised before this Bill goes to another place, like a mouse, to be more adequately debated and considered.
Confidentiality and secrecy is a problem which is not a technical issue. It is one which must be discussed by lawyers and those concerned with the freedom and rights of individuals and companies. Parliament must be the forum for discussing these particular issues. Of course files, whether in dirty cupboards or in old drawers, are always accessible to the criminal. The files that we are dealing with will be kept in a more sophisticated form and the law dealing with musty files must be brought up to date, to deal with this new form of filing—the tape, the disc, or mere random access memory.
The other fears which we expressed in Committee had to do with the question of State patronage. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology referred in the debate to secrecy. He said, of the Opposition:
Whenever they have made a technical statement, one can always trace back the particular person or firm they happen to have been talking to immediately before coming to the Committee."—[OFFICIAL REPORT; Standing Committee B, 15th June, 1967; c. 78–92.]
This was abuse of the sources of information which we had, implying that the computer firms had gone wailing to Conservative Members. At column 89 I explained perfectly clearly that this was not the position. We in opposition were concerned about this Bill. We asked the computer manufacturers and the consultants for advice, which they were not willing to give us too readily, because they did not wish to be embroiled in the political boiling-pot.
This was misinterpreted by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, but that slur has stuck, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will do the best that he can to make quite certain that this slur on

the industry, and the users of the industry does not stick. For my part I will take full responsibility for asking the questions, and obtaining some answers so that we could be informed. The fact that this slur has stuck raises the next issue.
A large company, let alone a nationalised industry or a department, has the advantage of patronage. A Government Department has the advantage of State patronage. Many people whom I have consulted have said, "Please do not take this issue up in the House of Commons as it will affect our position with the Post Office." The large user realises that, when he is dealing with the civil servants in the Post Office, if he were to come wailing to the Opposition he would jeopardise his own position. That is the position which has been put to us. I may have exaggerated the situation, but I hope that the Postmaster-General will eradicate this slur. The Postmaster-General is providing two distinct activities, an advisory service and a transmission service for those who need these facilities.
I have raised this matter again on Third Reading because it has been a matter of regret to me that already the industry has been brought into the political boiling pot, which is inevitable if the Post Office takes on an activity which is in competition with private industry. What I say now is just a hint of what might or might not happen in the future. I implore the Postmaster-General to make certain—he has indicated that this is what he would wish to happen, and the Assistant Postmaster-General has been fair as well—that these slurs which have been cast are eradicated and that companies using Post Office facilities will feel free to consult and work on a basis of trust with the Postmaster-General.
We tabled a new Clause relating to consultation. The Assistant Postmaster-General implied that the Measure had the
backing of the firms concerned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 15th June, 1967, c. 71.]
A good deal of the Measure—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) wish to interrupt me? Apparently, he does not. I hope the Postmaster-General will bear in mind that many of the users of this


equipment have felt at a disadvantage in not having been consulted about this Bill before it was published. Why did he not do this? Our new Clause asked for regular consultation. I hope the Postmaster-General will be in a position to take the initiative to bring about technical discussions with manufacturers, the bureaux and the users. There are technical problems which can only be resolved collectively. He referred to the computer centre, and it may be that in that centre he will find the best medium for achieving this.
Those in the industry must take note of what has gone on in other industries. The National Coal Board has gone in for brick manufacture. The steel industry will have a public and a private sector. If there is a public and private sector in any activity, then I am convinced, having sat through the proceedings on the Steel Bill, that the private sector will be well advised to bring itself together in some form of trade association from which the public sector—that is the Post Office in this case—is specifically excluded. Having said that on technical issues, it is important that there should be free consultation between the Post Office and the users, whether competitor or customer, and that the Postmaster-General should be in a position to take the initiative.
In my view, this is an innocuous-looking Bill which has very much more behind it than appears to be the case at first sight. I hope the House will forgive me for having spoken for longer than I should, but I believe that in five or 10 years time those in the computer industry will look back and will realise that tonight Parliament passed a Measure of considerable importance to this nation and its people.

Dr. Bennett: When this House started debating this Bill it certainly seemed to be such a minor matter as might be relegated to a Monday morning sitting. It is, in fact, one of the most momentous pieces of legislation this House has had to consider.
Today it is meaningless because today there is no network, no computer complex or anything but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) has said, in a few years' time this will be a very substantial thing,

and this giant will grow and grow until it may indeed be a nightmare organisation of supervision which could fulfil all the works of the secret police and all the forms of supervision that could ever be undertaken for a totalitarian State.
It is this that has given us the misgivings that we have brought to light in the successive debates on this Bill. A very large number of points have been brought up during the Committee stage. We had what may have seemed a surprising number of Amendments and new Clauses put down for discussion, covering all sorts of details of the working of such a data-processing network. In the course of time I feel sure it will have to be granted by the most sceptical anti-Parliamentarian that every single one of these points has received generous discussion, and I am the first to pay tribute to the generosity shown by the Post Office Ministers in this because their behaviour, I think, has been very good, indeed exemplary. I wish that other Ministers deserved the pats on the back that the Post Office Ministers are getting today. They have been, as one of my hon. Friends said, the essence of sweet reasonableness, and our debates have been conducted in an admirable atmosphere of co-operation, trying to form what should be the best structure for something which is still only to be visualised in the future.
It is, of course, the possible abuses of this network which have the chief preoccupation of most of us. On these, we have first the new Clause introduced by the Postmaster-General—one totally absent from the Bill when it was first presented—which meets the broad subject of confidentiality, and now we have the offer of further discussions. All this is admirable, and we have the assurance of the Postmaster-General that there will be no invidious distinctions between the purposes for which the private operator and others may wish to employ the Post Office computer network and those for which Government Departments, etc., may wish to use it. There will be no weighting of this vast colossus against privately conceived computer organisations. This is fine, and I am grateful to the Postmaster-General, as all my hon. Friends are, for the readiness with which he has seen our point of view.
But in 10 years' time this Bill will still be the Act to which reference is


made, and the admirable sentiments of the Postmaster-General of June and July, 1967, will be buried in the archives of HANSARD and will not be of any legal force whatsoever.
This is why I must express my sorrow that no practical form of embodiment of these assurances has yet been found in any way to qualify the applications of the Bill and to give it permanent guidelines which undoubtedly exist tonight or there would be a much less amicable atmosphere in this Chamber. I wish I knew how this could happen, and how some of the exemplary statements of the Postmaster-General could be incorporated in the application which would be a subject of legal scanning in lots of lawyers offices in 10, 15 or 20 years' time.
I can only suggest that an opportunity will have to be taken, perhaps when the Post Office is reorganised—which will not be long hence, I understand—to incorporate safeguards, with the full cooperation of the Postmaster-General, I trust, in the Act as it will then be, or to make some further legislative provision so that we have far more permanent safeguards in our law than the admirable but fleeting words of the Postmaster-General today.
This has been the substance of my misgivings about the Bill. They were much more acute when our debates began. They have been largely allayed, at least for 1967, by the assurances which have been given, but for the years to come we must have permanent enshrinement of the undertakings which the right hon. Gentleman has given.

10.56 p.m.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I heartily endorse what my hon. Friends have said about the outstanding need to find a way of writing into the Bill some of the assurances which have been given, and I hope that further consideration will be devoted to that before the Bill goes to another place.
I suppose that I ought to congratulate the Postmaster-General on his rate of expansion. He has increased the length of his Bill by 50 per cent. since Second Reading. If his data processing service goes as fast as that, we shall all be pleased, especially if it is done really competitively. I am a little disturbed at some of the trends which are setting

in. Bearing in mind what the right hon. Gentleman has said, I wonder whether he saw the report in the Financial Times of 20th June of
a massive order worth £800,000 for nine of I.C.T.'s smallest computers to be installed in a chain of computer bureaux in the West Country.
which, the report says,
represents a resounding setback for the school of thought which claims that the best solution to commercial computing is to set up a large central machine and share its operating time between regional offices, operating over telephone links".
This is an increasingly competitive market. I hope that all this will mean for the Post Office still further pressure on the accelerator.
Perhaps the only remark with which I profoundly disagreed was made in Committee by the Assistant Postmaster-General when he said that, "understandably enough", the private bureau operator was preoccupied with the customers he could get for his own bureau, and he was not very concerned with the wider- or long-term view. He ought not to be in business unless he is, and, if he is not very interested in the long term, he will be out of business. It is becoming an increasingly competitive business.
I believe that the best bureaux do just as much long-term thinking as anyone in the Post Office. Long-term thinking is certainly essential, and it is essential that a close eye be kept on the trends. Perhaps, after the castigation which certain sections of the Press have had this evening, I may close the quotation which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. John H. Osborn) made from the article in The Times today. This is the final sentence by Kenneth Owen:
Potential applications for computers—in Government as well as in industry and commerce—have far outstripped the routine work on which they have been employed up to now, and it is against this background that Mr. Short's 'uninformative' enabling Bill must be assessed.
I agree. What I like particularly about that sentence is the reference to "within Government as well as outside". I believe that the first place for the Post Office to start to help is inside the Government machine itself. If it can improve the efficiency and utilisation of computers


there, it will be helping the great technological drive on which I know the Minister of Technology is finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate because of the increasing number of administrative jobs he is being given.
Although I still believe that some provisions of the Bill might be premature, I wish it well now. Just as with the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation Bill, after its passed Second Reading, so I feel that, the House having accepted this Measure in principle, the sensible thing to do is to try to make it work as well as possible. Let us remember that, despite the hardware and the software involved, a great many able men and women will be partly responsible for training the people required for an increasingly difficult and competitive job. I hope that the Post Office will never fail to draw from industry and commerce outside all the experience, technology and techniques it can get. If we can get a two-way traffic going here, there is some chance of the service being of value to the country.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

VALUATION (BRITISH ALUMINIUM AND LOCHABER POWER COMPANIES)

11.1 p.m.

The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Dr. J. Dickson Mabon): I beg to move:
That the Valuation (British Aluminium Company Limited and Lochaber Power Company) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1967, dated 6th June 1967, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.
The House will have noted the House of Commons Paper No. 467 which explains the considerations leading to the provisions of the Order. As explained in the Paper, the House will see that under Section 13 of the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, 1963, the Secretary of State is empowered to make provision by Order for determining the rateable value of
any lands and heritages occupied by persons carrying on (otherwise than under authority conferred by or under any public general enactment) an undertaking for the generation of electricity by water power.

This power was conferred on the Secretary of State to enable him to deal with the British Aluminium Company's installations—the only private hydro-electric undertaking in Britain.
The 1965 Order, which this Order amends, was made following representations by the company that the contractor's principle, that is, the one under which the valuation is a percentage of the capital value of heritable property, resulted in an unfair valuation in the case of hydro-electric installations which necessarily require extensive works of a heritable nature. The company stated that its aluminium production was economic only because electricity was produced at low cost from installations built in the 'thirties. This made a valuation based on current values, as distinct from original cost, quite unfair. A further factor, said the company, was that if industrial derating were to be removed in 1966, the year of the Scottish revaluation, the rate burden produced by the then existing valuations might cause the company to consider very seriously the future of the undertaking.
The effect of the 1965 Order was, broadly, to modify the contractor's principle so that the rateable value was based on the original capital costs of the works rather than on estimated current value. The Order reduced the rateable value—that is, after taking into account the 50 per cent. derating, of the installations—from £123,000 to about £90,000. But the local authorities concerned in Inverness-shire and Argyll did not lose income because the lost rateable value was made up by Exchequer equalisation grant. In terms of the 1963 Act the effect of the operation of the 1965 Order fell to be reviewed in the light of the general revaluation. As the 1965 Order supplanted normal methods of valuation the company's installations were unaffected by the revaluation, and they were entered in the 1966–67 valuation rolls at the same amounts as in 1965–66.
Following revaluation, however, the aggregate industrial valuation of the landward area of Inverness—and I am here disregarding the substantial new elements in the pulp mill valuation, for obvious reasons—was estimated to be about 4 per cent. higher, and industrial valuations in Argyll about 19 per cent. more.
As a result of its hydro-electric valuation remaining unchanged, while other valuations increased, the share of the total county rate burden met by the company in respect of these installations dropped—in Inverness by a little over 2 per cent. and in Argyll by 0·3 per cent.
Consultations therefore, began with the company and the local authorities some months ago. The company's case was, briefly, that the 1965 Order had been in operation only for one full rating year and since it took effect no significant physical or economic changes had taken place, and none could be foreseen at present.
The company, therefore, argued quite fairly that there were no grounds for varying the terms of the 1965 Order. The local authorities concerned, Inverness and Argyll County Councils, and the Association of County Councils in Scotland, took the view that, as there had been a general increase in valuations in Scotland, the valuation of the company's hydro-electric installations should be raised to a similar extent, that is, by 31·6 per cent.
While accepting that there is some substance in the company's arguments, the Secretary of State takes the view that it would be very difficult to justify a situation in which, after a general revaluation affecting all other properties, the company's installations are left exempt. The fact that there is provision for a statutory formula cannot be taken as implying that the valuation should be static and the company has the continued benefit of industrial derating.
The only equitable solution, therefore, is to make some upward adjustment of the valuation. The effect of the amending Order will be to increase the valuation of the hydro-electric installations so that the new valuation will bear the same relationship to the old as the industrial valuations—modified to take account of the pulp mill, which is rather special—of the landward areas of Inverness and Argyll for 1966–67 bear to those for 1965–66 that is increases of aproximately 4 per cent. and 19 per cent. respectively. This will mean a valuation of about £95,000 compared with £90,000 under the 1965 Order. We believe this to be a reasonable outcome. It establishes the principle that the company's valuations must not be regarded as static

without exposing the industry to a substantial increase in overheads on this score. In essence, the proposals in the Order are the result of negotiation with the company and the local authorities, and are a reasonable attempt by the Secretary of State to hold a fair balance between the interests of both parties. I therefore commend the Order to the House.

11.8 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Campbell: I agree that the system of valuation in the Order and in the 1965 Order contains a fair method of assessment of the properties of the two companies. As the Minister said, it followed the provision in the 1963 Act.
For many years, the companies have used hydro-electric plant to generate electricity in the west Highlands for the manufacture of aluminium, and in this they have helped to provide activity and employment needed in those areas. The increases now proposed of 19 per cent. for the property in Argyll and 4 per cent. for that in Inverness seem reasonable.
The Order applies to lands and heritages in those counties. One of the companies' plants has been at Foyers in Inverness-shire. Can the Minister clarify the position there? Has the property there been included under this valuation system? Regrettably, the plant there had to close down earlier this year, causing some unemployment at Foyers. I should be glad if the Minister could say something tonight about the company's lands and heritages there, and whether anything is being done and can be done to provide much-needed alternative employment.

11.10 p.m.

Mr. Russell Johnston: I should like to ask the Minister of State one or two questions about the Order. Often Orders are, inevitably, couched in somewhat legalistic language, and for our constituents properly to understand their import it is usually necessary for the Minister to explain them in relatively simple language. The Minister of State, who is normally a very lucid individual, in his explanation followed very closely House of Commons Paper 467 and quoted extensively from it, directly attributing some quotations but also quoting without attributions at some points.
First, would the Minister explain in a little more detail precisely what the contractor's principle is? I know that there is an explanation in House of Commons Paper 467, but I should like to know a little more about it and what difference it made to the British Aluminium Company. The Ministry said that the company had stated that had it been subject to straightforward rating it might well have had an effect on whether it would have been able to continue in the Highlands. Therefore, it is important to establish precisely on what grounds a different valuation was made.
Secondly, the Minister said that he disregarded the effect of the pulp mill for obvious reasons. The reasons may well be obvious to hon. Members, but they may well not be so obvious to people in the country. Will the Minister say why in his calculations he disregards the effect of the new pulp mill, because presumably the effect of other new properties is taken into account? I assume that he is taking into account other new valuations which may have come into existence in both Inverness and Argyll.
Thirdly, with regard to paragraph 4 of the Order, I should be interested to know in more detail than the Minister gave us what the company's case was. The Order says that the company's case was that no significant physical or economic changes had taken place since the Order was made. That was the Valuation (British Aluminium Company Limited and the Lochaber Power Company) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1967. This is a rather bald statement and hardly explains the grounds which presumably were justifiable in terms of making a case why the company opposed the claims of both Inverness and Argyll County Councils and, indeed, the expressed opinion of the Association of County Councils. I should like to know in more detail what the case was.
Lastly, I echo what the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) asked, whether in making the computation Foyers was taken into account? I doubt whether it would be in order to ask what arrangements the Government have been making to allow for the unemployment caused by the closure of Foyers, but if the Minister can say anything we shall be pleased to hear it.

11.15 p.m.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: In these proceedings it is always essential to consider precedent and that is why one is always concerned about that in Orders of this kind. With the different nature of the company and all the difficulties in its circumstances, it is very doubtful if there are any firms whose heavy capital costs have resulted in a rate burden of something like 20 per cent. of output value. That is why we could defend this Order against other claims by other industries for similar treatment.
The "contractors' principle" which I referred to is a valuers' phrase in which valuation is a percentage of capital value of the hereditable property and we have modified this in this Order, as we did in the 1965 Order. Some people have asked, "Why has a company all this difficulty? Why can it not cost the hydroelectric works and carry the cost of electricity on the market price?"
The answer is that it must—to be competitive, particularly in the international market, where the internationally competitive price is a farthing per unit—get cheap electricity for the smelting plant. If it is to be competitive, that puts a top limit on the value of the undertaking. At the same time, the company is in difficulties, for production of electricity is very difficult because of the size of the plant, and because of an uncertain supply of water. So the company has to face this situation against a background where rates and other costs are steadily rising, but it is limited in its ability to raise its output. This is difficult, and there are exceptional circumstances. That is why the Government have treated the company very exceptionally.
Another question is whether we should accept completely the company's case, that its valuation should be static and this the Government are not prepared to accept at this juncture. We are prepared to admit only that it is in a very special category and that modifications should be as fair as possible, and peculiar to the company, given these peculiar circumstances. We have to balance that against the demand of the local authorities for the same treatment in industrial valuation being accorded to them as to others.
We are proposing increases of 4 per cent. and 19 per cent. The 19 per cent. may sound large, but it does not amount to very much. Inverness, in the 1965 Order, was £80,600 and it will rise to £83,800. Argyll was £9,300 in the 1965 Order and it will rise to £11,100, so that 19 per cent. is perhaps misleading in terms of actual increase, but hon. Members should remember that what was requested was 31 per cent. in both cases. That is cut substantially. It would have represented quite a hefty demand on the company. That was why the Secretary of State could not accede to that demand.
If we had taken the pulp mill out, the industrial valuation of Inverness County would have risen considerably and the case would have been stronger against the company in percentage terms. For reasons peculiar to the pulp mill, we felt it unfair to take this into account in industrial valuation and that is why we took it on the broad basis, without taking the pulp mill into account.
It would be an abnormally large figure if we took the pulp mill into account and that would distort the picture. For the reasons of Foyers' loss of employment and their setback, we are anxious that the company should continue in business and we are still anxious not to make too heavy demands on its resources. That is the reason why we were able to accept the 1965 Order and this Order. I will not try to anticipate what the situation will be like after the next revaluation year. That is too far ahead. I prefer that we should not discuss it now. There are so many different aspects still unknown to us and circumstances about which we are not now clear. I prefer to leave that matter until the time comes.
I cannot now give a definitive answer about valuation covering Foyers. My feeling is that it does. I will, however,

confirm whether this is so and will write to the hon. Members. It does not affect the central issue as to whether we should make this Order as a fair balance between the industry and the authorities concerned.

Mr. G. Campbell: I hope that, when the hon. Gentleman writes to me, he will tell anything he can about the situation of Foyers because this is, as he says, a worrying aspect.

Dr. Mabon: I will certainly comment on the wider aspect when I reply.

Mr. Russell Johnston: Can the hon. Gentleman also say whether the company is satisfied with the final result of the negotiations? Obviously, it can never be absolutely satisfied but is it severely dissatisfied or not altogether dissatisfied?

Dr. Mabon: The company is satisfied. I would not say that it is completely satisfied, but there have been no demonstrations outside St. Andrew's House. I think that it is hoping that, later on, the situation might be viewed by my right hon. Friend in a different context, perhaps even more favourably than he has done so far.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Valuation (British Aluminium Company Limited and Lochaber Power Company) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1967, dated 6th June 1967, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd June, be approved.

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past Eleven o'clock.